


God of Stories

by PhantomEngineer



Series: God of Stories [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Loki is an author, M/M, Thor is a metal singer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-10-30 10:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: Loki wakes up, his last memories of Thanos's hand around his throat, to find himself safely in bed beside Thor. Only, Thor remembers their life differently. To Thor he is 'husband' not 'brother'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of my precious darling. It was a sudden idea I had in bed, got up to write the first scene to send to V. I envisioned it initially as a little one shot, but it kind of ended up as a lot more than that.

Loki started awake, shuddering. He could still feel Thanos’s hand around his throat, even as he gasped and breathed freely. He sat up in bed, chest heaving, trying to remember. Trying to forget. Trying to ease his breathing back to normal now that he could breathe again.

“Loki?” Thor mumbled sleepily, disturbed from his own dreams by Loki’s sudden movement. Loki turned to look down at him, before casting his eyes round the room. He didn’t recognise it. A normal room. Four walls, a window covered by curtains that blocked the faint light of the night from shining in. Hard to see the details in the dark. Slowly he laid back down, allowing Thor to wrap his arms around him.

“Just a nightmare, brother,” he answered softly, trying to understand. Trying to piece together what came between Thanos on the _Statesman_ and being safe in a bed beside Thor.

“Brother?” Thor asked incredulously, raising himself up to rest on his elbow, gazing at Loki with a curious expression. Loki stared back at him in alarm for a moment, before clamping down on it with his usual resolve.

“Sorry,” he said, melding his response to suit the situation Thor expected, their bodies entwined in a way that breached usual levels of brotherly closeness, “My dream, it was very… real.”

“And in it we were brothers?” Thor asked curiously, his face shadowed but still Loki could see love in it, “Brothers not husbands?”

“…Yes…” Loki admitted, filing away the new knowledge carefully. It made sense, given their positions but it didn’t make sense when combined with what was in his mind. Maybe had he been someone else he would have asked questions, demanded answers, denied the reality before him as having any truth, but he was Loki. He played along. It was easier to weasel out the conclusion to the mystery that way. He could act just as well as he could lie.

“Tell me about it, it seems to have shaken you quite badly,” Thor said, stroking his fingers through Loki’s hair with tender affection.

“Of course,” Loki said with a gentle laugh though there was nothing he wanted to do less than comb over his life story as though it was nothing, “But promise me one thing. Once I’m done, you’ll tell me our real story. The truth. As a nice little reminder to reassure me that it was nothing but a dream.”

“Anything for you, my love,” Thor replied, giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek, something Loki had no memory of Thor ever doing before but here in this bed, in this reality, it seemed to be as natural as breathing.

“Well,” Loki said, curling up against Thor, drawing strength from his familiar strength even if it wasn’t entirely familiar, a different element to their relationship added into the mix, “I dreamt that we were princes. Gods. Raised as brothers.” He kept his words careful, his tone distant, though for him he could recall no other reality. Could see no explanation as to how he had ended up here, in Thor’s arms in what almost seemed to be an alternate reality where all they had lived through was different. Thor hummed with a suppressed laugh, as though the idea was amusing, answering Loki’s question about whether they were princes or gods in Thor’s concept of reality.

“You were due to be crowned king, though you weren’t really ready, and I suppose when I tried to raise that issue with father it all went a bit wrong. I ended up captured by some alien warlord, who had me invade Earth,” he hesitated slightly over the word, using the one that he suspected to be more wise compared to the more usual term of Midgard, but he got the feeling that wasn’t likely to be the commonly used term here. 

“Luckily,” he continued breezily, omitting plenty of detail including all of his feelings on the matter, “You had made friends with a variety of powerful and talented friends, so we fought a great battle which you won. You took me back home in chains and father was angry. I was locked up in prison for a while but then some dark elves invaded out home and killed our mother. We defeated the evil, but in the process I faked my death to avoid having father yell at me again and poke me back in my prison cell.”

Thor snorted at Loki’s turn of phrase, though Loki had found the entire process to be not in the least bit funny. He was capable of ignoring that though, pushing through his hurt to spin the tale as fast as he could, the details there but smoothed over so he didn’t have to deal with them too much. Necessary as his side of the bargain to receive Thor’s tale in return.

“I disguised myself as father using magic and ruled our realm as king for a while, then you returned and were surprised to find me alive. Then our evil sister appeared, destroyed our realm and we all fled her in a spaceship. Also, you lost an eye. At which point, the alien warlord appeared to kill the survivors. He tortured you and then… killed me.” Loki concluded his tale uncomfortably, not caring that he was glossing over details and skipping whole sections of what had actually happened.

“Wow,” Thor said, giving him a casual kiss on his forehead, “That was one hell of a ride. Fabulously bizarre. But you’re here now. I’ve got both eyes, we have no sister that I know of, and Frigga is still very much alive and well. Dad is as grumpy as always but that’s it really.”

Loki felt himself go limp, the idea of Frigga still being alive washing over him and for a moment kicking all other thoughts from his mind. He looked into Thor’s eyes, both of them, no eyepatch in sight, and felt grounded.

“No such thing as aliens or magic, and we definitely aren’t princes let alone gods,” Thor continued, nuzzling his nose affectionately into Loki’s hair, as though that was his version of paradise.

“Next thing you’ll be telling me is that I’m not a sorcerer,” Loki muttered, making Thor laugh and poke him in the stomach. Loki didn’t need an answer to confirm what he already knew. He had reached for his magic and felt nothing. 

“Now,” he said, after a moment of enjoying the sensation of being in Thor’s arms, feeling more loved than he could remember in his other life, “You promised you’d tell me our real life story to soothe me back to sleep and put the nightmare to rest.” It didn’t matter what had been real, he needed to the answers even if it felt like begging for information. 

“Well…” Thor said, drawing him closer and shifting so that they were lying comfortable, his lips having easy access to kissing Loki’s neck, “I suppose we were born but I don’t remember that. I know that Frigga adopted you when you were still a baby. Dad and Frigga married when we were teenagers and I was torn. Part of me desperately wanted to be a good big brother to you, but a part of me couldn’t stop thinking how hot my new stepbrother was. You didn’t want anything to do with dad or me, though, and refused to acknowledge any kind of familial relationship, which rather solved my dilemma for me. You and dad always did clash.”

Loki laughed softly at that, amused by the idea that that had remained the same. 

“Then when I was about to go off to university, after what may have been more than one drink, I decided to be brave and tell you how I felt, fully expecting you to reject me in terms that would shred my self-confidence forevermore but I wanted to get it off my chest.”

Thor sighed, remembering. He probably wouldn’t have made the decision to knock on Loki’s door after getting home had he still been sober, or if Loki’s light hadn’t still been on despite the lateness of the hour. He’d knocked. Loki’s voice had answered with a confused “Yes?” and Thor had opened the door to see Loki sitting on his bed in his green pyjamas, scribbling away in his notebooks as he often did. 

Thor had, without much poetry or elegance confessed his love for Loki. “Loki I love you,” he had said, before shaking his head and clarifying, “Loki I’m in love with you.”

Loki had looked at him long and hard, before saying, “Shut the door and come over here.” Thor had been surprised, but had done as instructed. He had walked over to Loki’s bed uncertainly, utterly unsure what might come next, as nothing could ever be predicted with Loki. Loki had carefully set aside his notebooks and pens, standing up to look quizzically at Thor, before reaching up to wrap his arms around Thor’s neck.

“You love me?” he had asked, his breath warm against Thor’s lips, “You’re in love with me?”

Thor hadn’t needed to answer, as Loki had seen the truth in his face. Loki had kissed him, deeper and more intensely than Thor had imagined when alone, because he had thought about Loki far more than he had felt able to admit to his father or stepmother, let alone Loki. But Loki had kissed him, pulling him down on top of him on the bed where he had wrapped his legs round Thor’s waist and kissed him deeper still.

“Loki,” he had gasped, swept away with the sudden turn of events, clinging on to Loki like a drowning man, trying to touch every inch of him that he could. 

“Can you be quiet?” Loki had asked, his fingers already under Thor’s shirt trailing along his stomach muscles and playing with the waistband of his jeans. Thor had groaned as he understood Loki’s meaning, nodding desperately even though he had little faith in his ability to do so, just knowing that he had to have as much of Loki as he could. “Don’t want to wake Odin or mum,” Loki had whispered sensibly.

They had managed to be quiet, to Thor’s surprised relief. When Odin had found out about their relationship, he had been unimpressed, though Thor didn’t know if it was because they were supposed to be stepbrothers, because he had hoped that Thor would fall in love with a woman or simply because it was Loki and Loki had always had a special talent when it came to getting up Odin’s nose. Frigga had been delighted, both at the idea of her sons being happy together as well as genuinely quite relieved as until that point she hadn’t herself been totally certain that Loki hadn’t hated Thor, so them being together proved that he probably didn’t.

“We’ve been together ever since,” Thor concluded, blushing slightly remembering their first time, “Dad was grumpy, Frigga was happy for us. Dad tends to be grumpy about most things, really. He was grumpy about me being a singer in a metal band rather than a cellist in an orchestra, but I love it. Loved the cello and still play it occasionally, but I love playing the music I write with the band and our fans give us such great support.” Thor glanced at Loki and then continued on, doing his best to be detailed in his retelling even though it seemed silly to him. Loki seemed to be comforted by his tale, even if it seemed stupid to him. “Volstagg plays drums, Hogun plays bass guitar, Fandral plays keyboards and Sif plays lead guitar. I’m on vocals and occasionally back up guitar.”

“You’re the one who’s really got a way with words though,” Thor sighed, “You’re an author. When we tour, you often come with us even though you complain about it being cramped and Volstagg farting too much, but tour just isn’t the same without you curled up in the tourbus typing away at your latest novel ignoring us. We got married just over three years ago, and you know I think dad was genuinely happy for us he’s just not very good at showing it.”

Loki let Thor’s words wash over him. He had always found Thor’s voice to be comforting for all that when they had been children it had always been him that had told them both bedtime stories. They had often verged on being disrespectful, but they had made Thor laugh and Thor’s laughter had soothed Loki and so as children he’d often fallen asleep with that sound ringing in his ears. Thor stroked his hair and Loki sighed slightly, feeling at peace despite everything. He felt his eyes close as he drifted back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 1 has its ups and downs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was intending to separate this into smaller chunks but I wrote the entire story as one thing that flows from start to finish so the only natural breaks are really when they go to sleep/wake up and I like it too much to rewrite whole sections to create the stop/start of chapters. So sorry for the length.

Loki surfaced briefly from sleep to Thor gently kissing his cheek, beard softly scratching at his skin, a warm embrace that seemed to wish to protect him from the world beyond the thick duvet. All too soon, Thor was gone, leaving Loki bereft of his warmth, still mostly asleep to fall back into a cozy doze. He woke again to Thor placing a cup of steaming tea on the bedside table, before clambering back under the covers to bury his face in Loki’s neck, arms winding their way around Loki’s body to press them close together as though Loki was the most precious thing in the world. It was not the world or life Loki was used to. It still felt unfamiliar, even if his body felt just the way it always had done, up until his death.

“Morning,” Thor said, rubbing their noses together affectionately. Loki could smell the coffee on his breath, could see the matching cup of presumably coffee beside Thor’s side of the bed.

“Morning,” Loki said, unsure how he felt. A large part of him simply wanted to melt into the embrace, to lie there forever with his head resting on Thor’s shoulder feeling like he was finally home. Like he’d found something he had never realised he was searching for. Reluctantly, he shifted just enough away from Thor’s arms to be able to start to sip at his tea, letting it warm him inside even though it wasn’t as warming as Thor’s body against his own was. He looked over the rim into Thor’s eyes, blue and strangely perceptive, as though they could read his mind.

“You’re still out of sorts,” Thor said, “The nightmare still bothering you?”

Loki nodded, accepting the half truth. It was, though more it was that he couldn’t remember any of the life Thor had described to him during the night. To him what Thor believed to have been a dream was still the only reality Loki had ever known.

“Take it easy today,” Thor said, taking Loki’s empty cup from his hand and reaching to place it safely on the bedside table, “And I know you, you’ll potter about thinking and the next thing I know it’ll be an epic series of novels that’ll get turned into a load of films with actors who struggle to keep their shirts on.”

“Mmm,” Loki agreed, liking the idea of not having to do much at least. He needed time to think.

“I’m supposed to be going to the studio,” Thor continued, nuzzling his way to press a warm kiss behind Loki’s ear, before drawing back to look him in the eyes carefully, “You’ll be alright alone, right?”

“Yes,” Loki said, feeling himself unravel in Thor’s arms, safe and warm in a way he couldn’t recall ever being before.

Thor leaned forward and kissed him, softly and with so much love that Loki could feel it in every inch of his body. A part of him, distant and contrary, objected. It tried to remind him that Thor was his brother, that they had fought many times. That this Thor was just a puppet to manipulate to figure out what was going on. He ignored it, as he probably should have ignored the prickly voice many times before when his mischief went beyond good-natured fun and crossed the line to malicious mayhem. Too often it had been Thor that suffered in the fallout from those moments.

He relaxed into the kiss just as he had relaxed into the embrace, parting his lips willingly and without needing to even consider it, welcoming Thor’s tongue with his own. He missed it when Thor drew back, but not for long as Thor moved to kiss behind his ear, scratching his sensitive neck with his beard. Loki shivered, remembering Thanos’s hands around his throat, and then he shivered again in pleasure at the gentle scrape. He could feel Thor’s lips curving into a smile against his skin, as though he knew the reaction he would get. Without really meaning to, Loki wriggled closer, shifting so that their positions changed enough that he could rub his face into the crook of Thor’s neck, his nose buried in his beard. Thor chuckled, the sound resonating through Loki as much as it echoed in his ear, and stroked his fingers through Loki’s hair.

For a moment they lay there, then Thor was the one to wriggle, pressing a hard cock suggestively against Loki’s hip.

“What do you want?” Loki asked, curious and uncertain but with his tone light and flirtatious. He was a master of flirtation just as he was a master of lying. He ignored the warmth in his own body and the cautious interest of his own cock even if it was likely Thor was paying attention in his stead.

“Hmm,” Thor hummed with a smile, brushing dark hair from Loki’s face so he could look into his eyes, “I think I want to make love to you.”

Loki felt the thorns that had always been wound around his heart constrict and suddenly he understood. He had always known the thorns that had grown as he aged were because of Thor, that it was Thor’s presence that had made them wind their way through his heart stabbing and piercing it. But now they bloomed, finally, into roses that had waited for centuries for the chance. It hurt, just as the thorns always had clenched painfully into his very soul whenever he had glanced at Thor, seen him standing there in all his golden radiance, but now they clenched in realisation that it wasn’t jealousy or hate but rather a different kind of love from the one he was supposed to feel.

Thor paused, and Loki realised that he had frozen, his breath nearly taken from him as surely as Thanos had stolen it from him though both through such different methods. He reached up, almost desperately, to pull Thor into another kiss, speaking his feelings with his body even if he didn’t trust his tongue to utter them as words. Tangled with Thor’s own it made it’s point quite clearly enough. 

Thor moved again to his neck, as though he knew just how sensitive it was to the combination of Thor’s gentle kisses and rough beard. Loki gasped quietly, Thor’s touch speaking of deep familiarity as well as deep love, washing away all his concerns or objections. Thor’s hands slipped up his pyjama shirt, and Loki irritatedly thought the spell to vanish it and all the rest of their clothes into a pile on the floor. Their pyjamas stayed on them, reminding Loki that his magic was no longer a part of him, forcing him to suffer the indignity of sitting as Thor pulled the pyjama shirt over his head in an almost reverent fashion.

Loki had stripped without magic before, though then it had been for show and part of the appeal had been that he did it manually. He hadn’t actually, he had cheated to ease the way with the more fiddly buckles, but he was Loki - he always cheated. He didn’t waste much time ruminating over the lack of his magic, as he was quickly distracted by Thor’s hands stroking firmly down his sides, as though Thor knew just the right amount of pressure to use to ensure it felt heavenly without the slightest hint of a tickle. Loki could almost imagine that Thor had learnt that exact pressure with his usual persistence for all things physical through many trials of being kicked by a shrieking and ticklish Loki.

Thor’s mouth followed, kissing along Loki’s collarbone before joining his fingers in playing with Loki’s nipples. Loki sighed, surrendering quite happily to Thor’s touch. He felt so loved that he was surprised it was even possible. All his sharp angles and edges that helped forge his even sharper tongue softened, loosened and curled up as nothing but the gentlest of feelings, tender and tenderised. As though he was being worshipped like the god he was, only not quite in the way a mortal servant would worship their deity. Like a lover loving their beloved. 

He barely noticed Thor slipping off his pyjama trousers or slipping a pillow under his hips. What he noticed was Thor kissing what seemed to him to be every single scrap of flesh he had, and as Thor loomed over him for a return trip to his lips he noticed that Thor was still wearing his pyjamas having expended his efforts on Loki. With a flash of irritation for his lack of magic, he tugged demandingly at Thor’s pyjama shirt, making Thor laugh and pull it off obediently. Loki had always loved the sound of Thor’s laughter. Now it seemed to rumble through him as Thor discarded his pyjamas on top of the heap already formed by Loki’s.

Thor returned to his mission of kissing and stroking all of Loki as agonisingly slowly as it was physically possible, meaning that Loki was torn between wanting to kick him in the head for not just fucking him already when he was starting to get desperate for it and between being utterly unable to do anything of the sort as all his muscles seemed to have melted helplessly, leaving him at Thor’s mercy in a way he never had been when they’d fought.

Loki liked to think that it was unlike him to be passive, but nothing was the way he could remember it. He let himself be swept away on the tides of Thor’s loving familiarity with his body, making feelings that were emotional as well as physical unfurl within him as Thor kissed up and down the length of his cock, even as he bit back a whine begging for more. He felt safe and loved, something he had almost forgotten it was possible to feel. All pretence at those feelings had vanished for definite when he had found out the truth of his parentage, though realistically they had been eroded long before then, and everything that happened after his fall from the Bifrost had merely pushed them further from him. Even after Ragnarok, heading helplessly into the unknown with Thor and the remaining refugees, he had still felt uncertain and wary, painfully aware that at any moment it could all change and it had, with Thanos slaughtering defenceless people. Killing him. Now, he was lost and unsure what was real, but Thor’s touch soothed those worries away. Made him feel completely at peace with himself in a way he never had been, content and sighing in satisfaction when Thor finally started pushing his way inside him.

Thor groaned softly into Loki’s ear, burying his face in Loki’s neck rather like how his cock was also buried in Loki. Loki wrapped his arms and legs around Thor, clinging to him and feeling small in his embrace. He knew he wasn’t really, that Thor was only slightly taller than him, that even if he was less muscular than Thor he was still not small. Still, he felt like there was nothing else in the world but Thor. Thor above him and surrounding him and inside him. Thor buried deep inside his heart and body.

Thor moved, slowly and gently as though he was torturing Loki with his love, continuing to moaning throatily in Loki’s ear. He had never been one for silence, Loki knew that. Loki had known many sounds to come from Thor’s lips, had wrung a variety of moans from them himself, but they had been different. These warmed Loki’s heart so much that he thought it might burst and he might die again, swept away from this life that was too good to be true to another one just like how he had left the burning wreckage of his previous life. They jolted through him like electricity even if Thor was not commanding the lightning. It still seemed to sizzle through Loki in waves of pleasure.

He could feel himself changing and rearranging, finally allowing himself to marvel at Thor’s beauty in a way that he had forced himself to hide even from himself, a secret locked too deep to even know it existed. Now he was lost in the sensation, all the prickles that had made him who he was transformed to a flower garden, Thor’s warm breath against his face accompanied by full-bodied groans that reverberated through Loki’s soul. Thor kissed him as Loki tangled his hands in Thor’s hair, long and golden like it had been before Sakaar only Sakaar had never happened here just as Hela had never happened, the proof in the two blue eyes full of adoration.

Thor moved to support himself on one strong arm only, with Loki having little time to mourn the loss of two bulging biceps surrounding him and forming the edge of his world when the freed hand made its way to his cock as though that was where it belonged. It didn’t matter that Loki didn’t remember any previous times, that for him this was the first time he and Thor had ever done anything of the sort. Thor did. Thor knew him, knew his body and his reactions. Knew just the right amount of pressure, the right speed, the right angle. The right timing. Loki came, chocking away all sounds that might fall from his lips even though they would have been drowned out by Thor anyway. 

Thor stilled, sighing audibly in a way that Loki knew was unintentional but he would only manage to produce that kind of volume with a mere sigh if he meant it to be heard clearly. He pressed his nose and then a kiss into Loki’s neck, before reluctantly slipping out and rolling to the side, pulling Loki with him so they lay still wrapped around each other. Loki could feel the sticky wet mess of cum drip onto the bed, and there was no magic for him to fastidiously vanish it away so he just let it be rather than do anything that might come between lying in Thor’s arms, his heavy breathing like the most beautiful of music to his ears.

Thor kissed him again, slowly and deeply, before drawing back to land a quick peck on the tip of his nose. Loki wrinkled his nose, which made Thor smile affectionately, gazing at him as though he were the most beautiful person on the planet rather than a slightly sweaty and sticky mess. Loki appreciated it.

“I suppose we should shower, and then I should head to the studio…” Thor said, sounding mildly reluctant at the idea of moving from his current position. Loki was torn between never again moving from Thor’s arms and being rather keen on the idea of being clean. Showering while wrapped up in Thor’s arms seemed like the perfect solution in many ways, so he had no serious objections when Thor rose, inviting him too.

They showered together, quickly and efficiently, and even if the methods were somewhat different to the bathing Loki was used to on Asgard he adapted with no problem. He had spent time in places other than Asgard, even if he had always had magic to aid him when he either couldn’t use the facilities or found them lacking for whatever reason. To him, he hadn’t washed since Sakaar which had been a very specific kind of experience that he was in no rush to repeat, but one he had managed with aplomb. 

Washed and mostly dried, he sat back down on their bed in nothing but a towel to watch as Thor dressed himself. He felt clean, not just in a physical sense but something more. As though somehow all of the sins of the life he had known, where he had walked the fine line between mischief and villainy, falling too close to outright evil for his own comfort, had all been cleansed. He felt small and vulnerable, stripped of his magic and his armour, but still safe because Thor was there humming cheerfully as he pulled on a pair comfortable-looking jeans over his underwear. They reminded Loki of the style that Thor had always tended towards when they dressed in Midgardian clothes, so in many ways he wasn’t really surprised.

He withdrew a T-shirt but rather than put it on he moved toward Loki, bending down to brush a kiss to his lips before asking a question that Loki had heard many times before but not for a long time, not since they had still been on reliably good terms. “Braid my hair?” Thor asked, offering him a hair tie.

“Of course,” Loki replied, touched in a way that made no sense in the context, as it was clear this Thor asked regularly enough, that there had been no fall from grace or attempted invasions that had come between them. He shifted so Thor could sit down between his legs, letting his fingers stroke through Thor’s still-long hair. It was still slightly damp despite the hair dryer that Thor had used briefly. He’d blown at Loki’s hair too, though not for long enough that either of them had dry hair, just slightly less damp. Loki didn’t quite trust it, though he had always dried his hair with magic to ensure it was absolutely perfect and now he no longer had that option.

He braided Thor’s hair simply, using the style that the Thor he had known had always been partial to. When he was done, Thor turned to give him another affectionate kiss before slipping on the T-shirt hiding his lovely chest behind a joke about beards that Loki thought was mediocre at best and he imagined Thor found hilarious. Loki knew that he could come up with far better, and also that Thor should not wear shirts as it deprived him of a sight he rather liked, though at least his arms were still visible. That didn’t last long as a hoodie followed the T-shirt, making Loki pout without really noticing and Thor laugh as though he was quite used to that reaction. He kissed Loki again, leaning down and wrapping his fingers in Loki’s hair. Loki was reluctant to let him go, but even more reluctant to stand up and leave the safe security of the now familiar bed. 

“If you’re just going to laze around all day, you may as well just wear pyjamas,” Thor said with a hearty laugh, chucking a pair from the drawer, which Loki assumed were his own. “Though, the sheets need changing…” Thor added, glancing at the unmade bed that Loki was still perched on, beginning to feel the chill in the air. Nothing like as cold as he had felt before, but before he had been resistant to the cold not just through the hardiness of being æsir but though the truth of his jötunn self.

“Text me if you need anything,” were Thor’s parting words, and Loki was left alone. The room suddenly felt bigger and emptier than it should have done. The world seemed ominous and full of mystery, as though there were countless dangers beyond the door through which Thor had left. He’d been through it, to go with Thor to the bathroom, but now it felt different. He had no guide. He was alone, just like he’d been alone in unknown worlds before and that had never ended well for him. For all his abilities, his magic and his silver tongue, he had always ended up as the play-thing for some being more powerful than him.

With a sigh, he finished drying himself and put on the pyjamas Thor has tossed at him. He was tempted to rummage through the drawers to find something more in keeping with his usual style, but he also wanted something comfortable and the pyjamas had been handled by Thor, which was as close to comforting as any of the clothes were likely to get. There was no one to see him, no chance of enemies that might require armour that he didn’t have or the suave presentation that he rarely felt even if he always projected it. They were nice pyjamas at least, all silky and designed for lounging, which Loki supposed was what Thor expected him to do. Loki didn’t intend to lounge about though, he intended to poke about investigating this new life he had ended up in so he could draw up some theories.

Currently he was wondering about the afterlife, but this was definitely not anything like how anyone had ever described Valhalla or Hel. He felt that dying while attempting to stab Thanos was dying in battle, though he also didn’t know if failed assassination by trickery was generally accepted as battle. It didn’t really matter, this was nothing like any of the afterlives he had ever considered might exist. He wondered if it could be a spell, or maybe an alternate universe that he had accidentally slipped into due to one of the many complex spells he had often woven about himself with consideration of the risk of death that had dogged him.

He left the rumpled mess of the bed behind, venturing forth from the bedroom, exploring all of the rooms that seemed to make up the flat they lived in. It was nothing compared to the size of the castle he had been raised in. It wasn’t even the size of the floor in Avengers’ Tower that Thor had been given the use of, which Loki probably shouldn’t have known about but he had always been nosy and he had magic so he had known. It was, however, perfectly cozy and enough space for just two people if neither of those people were princes used to more.

The rooms were simple. Pleasant. Nothing as fancy as the golden spires of Asgard. Nothing as fancy as Avengers’ Tower. Loki liked them anyway. They seemed right. The right kind of balance between him and Thor. The comfortable red sofa was all Thor, the looming bookcases filled with books was all Loki. The sort of thing that could almost distract him for a lifetime, only first his attention was drawn to the cello in the corner of the living room, large and imposing. Silent. 

He walked forward to stand before it. “Mjölnir,” he named it. Thor had been gifted a weapon by Odin and it had been destroyed. Thor had been gifted an instrument by Odin, but had sought out another to make his own. It gave Loki hope, that if Thor had survived Thanos’s assault then he could have a new weapon forged just like this Thor had turned from Odin’s gifts to his own talents.

He turned, giving his full attention to the books, stroking loving fingers along their spines as he read. His name was not Odinson, not here, but at least it wasn’t Laufeyson. He was Loki and his name was written on books along the shelf, so he pulled them from their places to take with him to the sofa. There he sat, with the stories he had told in this world.

He paused, reverently handling them. Telling stories had always been a part of his gift. Mostly it was repackaged and seen as lying, but his silver tongue was more than just a tool for deception. He’d used it as a child to entertain Thor, bringing him to laughter, and on occasion to charm the whole court with clever tales and rhymes. It was a rarely appreciated talent, and one that came out most when he had to excuse misconduct in a more sanitised manner. He had definitely never written any of the silly stories he had told down, none of his cleverness had ever been recognised as worthy of preservation. But here, under his fingers, lay his words. 

Even he, quick at reading as he was, could not read the entirety of them before Thor’s return, nor did he intend to. He just wanted to flick through them, to read passages and get a hint of the ideas that the other Loki who had seemingly existed in this charmed life had had. He flicked the first book open, and noticed the dedication, to Thor, and felt his heart clench a little. Then he paused, and reread the titles carefully, pouring over the blurbs and the words he could see. He frowned, letting his mind go back to the words he and Thor had spoken with that morning and the night before. Different words, different languages. Not the All-Tongue as he was accustomed to, but mortal languages of Earth. English, he named the one written before him, the language the Avengers has used. The one that they had spoken in was not the same. He couldn’t quite name it, it was like the Norse he vaguely remembered learning of but different. A modern one descended from that one. He understood them both, could clearly use them both with no trouble.

He flicked through his books, and let himself be washed away for a brief while in the magic of his own mind. He supposed there were very few authors who had the opportunity to encounter their own worlds with no prior knowledge, enjoying it as though they were no more than any other reader. Loki wasn’t certain if he liked it that much, but he did like the way he wrote. He could feel himself through the pages, knew the turns of phrases and wit to be his own. There had been nothing like it in all the nine realms, and here was no exception. He was always himself, after all. Well, as long as you ignored his phase of being Odin, but everyone has similar phases. Some people grow up to be like their parents. Loki for a while simply took it further and literally was his father.

He realised with a start that he had lost himself in the books when he realised he was hungry. He cursed himself briefly, both the Loki sitting reading like he was a carefree prince with no concerns except reading all the books he could get his hands on and the Loki who had put those enchanting words and worlds onto pages that had ensnared him. With a sigh, he stood up to head in search of food. He needed to explore the flat properly, not distract himself with fantasy even if it was his own.

He headed to the kitchen, only it was different from the kitchens of Asgard. It was different from the kitchens of Sakaar too, and the kitchens of the Chitauri. He was glad for that, but he still found himself standing in the middle of the room baffled by the instruments. Asgard had relatively simple kitchens, and the food tended to be simple and easy to understand. Mostly meat, with some not meat. Here there were electronic devices he had never seen before and had no idea of their function. He knew he could learn, because he was clever and he could learn anything, but he felt overwhelmed with uncertainty. He didn’t know if he even needed to use them, or what they even were for, so he opened the cupboards he could. He understood the cups and the tap, so he poured himself a glass of water. He understood the rye bread and the sliced ham in the fridge, and they were simple. Recognisable food that needed no understanding of anything else, so that was what he ate, sitting alone in his pyjamas at the kitchen table, wishing Thor was there full of smiles to fuss about and understand this world for him.

To his horror, he felt a prickling of tears in his eyes, and had to sniff hard to control them. He finished eating miserably, feeling the silence of the flat in a crushing way. Silence had never bothered him much before, it had for a long time been something he craved. Silence from the rowdiness of Asgard, silence that could only be found in the quiet calm of the library. Now it felt too much, as though he were the only person in the world. He missed Thor to fill it up with his chatter and noise.

Loki slunk back to the bedroom. His feet were cold, he needed socks. He needed Thor. He put on socks, and feeling pathetic he put on Thor’s discarded pyjamas on top of his own, inhaling the lingering scent of Thor that wrapped itself around him like a hug. He wished he could have a real hug. He sat down on the bed, dejected and alone, feeling sorry for himself. He knew that he had to shake himself out of the feelings distracting him and set about figuring out the world he was in. Figuring out how to make it back to his real world to take his place by Thor, even if they’d just be killed by Thanos. The thought made his heart ache, not so much the idea of dying as he’d already done that once and it hadn’t been nearly as bad as he’d thought it would be, but the idea of once again being Thor’s brother now that there was another option available to him. He knew he wasn’t a good person, even if he wasn’t as evil as plenty thought him to be. He didn’t want to stand by Thor’s side smiling as Thor fell over himself falling in love with other people, he didn’t want to just be Thor’s brother. He didn’t want to know how dreadful his jealously could be when he had already proved himself to be capable of terrible things over far lesser slights.

A chime sounded from the bedside table, from beside the long abandoned tea cup of the morning. Loki, curious and wary, went to investigate. A phone, he realised. Gingerly, he picked it up, and the screen lit up with a picture of Thor shirtless and smiling. Loki smiled, before focusing on the message that was obscuring a part of Thor. It was, he realised, a message from Thor. Looking thoughtfully at the screen, he pressed the only button he could see and the phone responded. It wasn’t something he was used to, but it was something he could figure out. It wasn’t that dissimilar to some of the data pads on Sakaar, so he navigated his way to the message Thor had sent him. 

It wasn’t just a message. There was a picture, of him and Sif only Sif looked different from the Sif he had known. She still had long hair, but she was dressed in casual Midgardian clothing like Thor. She also had a number of piercings in her face, which Loki thought suited her but would also be impractical for a warrior. They were both smiling, great big smiles that Loki hadn’t been on the receiving end of for what felt like centuries. In the background he could just about make out the vaguely familiar shapes of Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral and he felt a sudden chill at the thought of them. He hadn’t seen them since Ragnarok, and he doubted that they had simply knelt to Hela. They were likely dead, and yet there they were fiddling with instruments, happy with Thor.

_You taking it easy? I’ll probably stop by the shops on my way back, is there anything you want?_

Loki bit his lip slightly, his fingers hovering over the keyboard for a long moment, before he gave in to the weakest part of him, hitting send before he could regret it. _A hug_ he sent, before taking the phone with him back to the living room. Now he wanted to know more about Thor’s band and just like the best place to find out about his books had been the bookcase he was certain there must be easy clues to that littered about.

Music on Sakaar had been stored on the varying computers that had existed throughout the various complexes Loki had made his home. The technology was different from the technology here, just as the technology was different from that used by the Chitauri or Thanos, but he could still recognise it. He had a greater familiarity with those devices than he did with kitchen ware, and even so he knew that if he tried he could figure out the devices in the kitchen that had baffled him. He just also felt there to be a greater risk of danger, of things accidentally being set on fire without his magic to save the day, and he didn’t want to have to explain to Thor. He didn’t want Thor to be angry, remembering the disappointment rolling off of Thor when he realised Loki had taken the Tesseract from the vaults of Asgard, even if he couldn’t quite imagine the kind Thor who had soothed his fears that very morning to be likely to change so quickly to fury.

As though they were an accompaniment to the books, Loki found what he was looking for beside the bookcase in an extensive CD rack. It didn’t take much for him to spot what he sought, his lips twisting into an amused smile at the albums labelled _Yggdrasil_. Sure enough, when he poured over them he found the familiar face of Thor staring out at him, accompanied by Sif and the Warriors Three. They weren’t dressed in normal Midgardian attire, but neither were they wearing the kind of armour that Loki was used to seeing them in. Rather, clothing that seemed to subtly hint at the idea of armour, the style reminiscent but not overtly so.

He pursed his lips, considering what he thought was almost certainly a computer. It had a screen and a keyboard. It also responded when he touched the mouse, waking up and allowing him access. Frowning, he searched until he found what he was looking for.

When Thor arrived back, that was the position he found Loki in, curled up in Thor’s pyjamas on the sofa, his own novels a discarded pile around him, a video of one of _Yggdrasil_ ’s concerts playing on the computer screen before him.

“Oh Loki,” he sighed, dumping his bags without a second glance and going to him, gathering him up in his arms to join him on the sofa, holding him close. “You should have said. You know I’d have come home if you needed me.”

Loki sniffled slightly, burrowing his face into Thor’s chest, revelling in the embrace. The hug he had craved all day. Thor stroked his back, calming circles until Loki stilled, soothed by the knowledge that Thor was there. Softly but firmly, Thor lifted his face up so they could look into each other’s eyes. “You do know, right?” Thor asked gently.

“No,” Loki admitted, the misery crushing him. He shook his head as he saw Thor’s reaction, the minuscule hints of failure that he could understand because he’d felt so much failure all his life. “No, I… I don’t remember…” he said haltingly, brokenly. He didn’t want to tell Thor more than anything else, but he couldn’t not tell him. He needed reassurance even if he was afraid that this Thor would think him mad. He couldn’t bear the idea of lying to him even though he had always lied. It was what made him Loki. But now he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be that Loki, the liar and the cheat. He wanted to be the Loki that was loved above all others by Thor.

“You don’t remember?” Thor asked carefully, his arms never wavering in their position holding Loki as though he was holding together the fragile, shattered pieces of a precious ornament. His voice was calm, his tone gentle, as though he was used to coaxing half answers from incoherent sobs.

“I don’t remember this,” Loki whispered, gesturing slightly to the room, the books and the concert playing away quietly to itself. “This life. I don’t remember it. I didn’t live it. It wasn’t me. I was a prince of Asgard, then I died and woke up here and I don’t understand.”

Thor withdrew slightly, to look him in the eyes again with a serious expression on his face. One that Loki hated to have put there, when he loved Thor’s smile and laughter so much. “You remember nothing?”

Loki nodded. He felt Thor tremble and saw what he recognised as fear pass over his face. Loki had never known Thor to be afraid of anything, and even if he was he never showed it to anyone. Thor’s eyes searched his, checking his face and his fingers gently probed his skull and Loki realised to his surprise that Thor was checking him for a head injury.

“You remember nothing,” Thor repeated, almost more to himself than to Loki.

“No,” Loki said sadly, wishing with all his might that he did. That it was really and truly his life.

Thor was looking at him carefully, as if trying to judge him for signs of it being the truth. Maybe that was fair, Loki couldn’t help but think. He had always been a bit of a liar, gifted at tricks and mischief. This wasn’t a trick of his doing though, he was as lost as the expression on Thor’s face plainly showed him to be, the worry etching out harsh lines that aged him. He wondered how he would feel if Thor remembered nothing of their life together, but at the same time he knew as the Thor before him remembered nothing of their shared childhood on Asgard. He remembered a different childhood.

“So,” Thor said slowly and calmly, “You remember us being brothers together and nothing more, raised as princes on Asgard? Like your dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Loki protested faintly, “I don’t think so. I lived it, I died and then I woke up here only I don’t know where here is.”

“Copenhagen, Denmark.” Thor answered, before pausing slightly and adding as though it might be necessary, “Planet Earth.”

It didn’t mean a huge amount to Loki, but it was still an answer and he was grateful for it. It filled in a blank if nothing more. 

“You believe me?” Loki asked, checking, “You believe that I’m telling the truth?”

“I believe that you believe you’re telling the truth,” Thor replied diplomatically, “I don’t know if I believe that what you believe to be true is. I… I think it might be a good idea if you went to the doctor’s.”

“I’m not ill,” Loki replied, “I just… I just don’t remember.”

“No,” Thor said carefully, “You don’t remember. And that’s worrying me. Please, Loki, please go see a doctor to at least check.”

“In a day or two,” Loki grudgingly agreed, sensing that Thor was unlikely to accept an outright refusal and hoping that he would have figured it all out before that happened.

“Because this isn’t just one of your moments, it’s something different,” Thor said, looking at Loki with such concern that Loki felt bad for worrying him but at the same time he felt so relieved to be able to tell the truth. Thor sighed, a hint of distress and worry, “What if it’s something like a brain tumour? Something serious?”

“I’m fine,” Loki said, before hesitating slightly. “I think I’m fine,” he clarified, suddenly himself unsure if he could really trust his own mind and memories, when everything around him seemed to suggest that they did not belong.

Thor let him curl back up into his arms, stroking his fingers through his hair and holding him close. Loki felt at peace there, safe and reassured that whatever mystery it might be that had led to him being there with such out of place memories could be solved. It could all be dealt with. Thor, holding him and hugging him, seemed tense, far tenser even than Loki.

“Loki,” he said eventually, shifting so that he could tilt Loki’s face up to meet his unbearably distressed eyes, “You remember us as being raised as brothers. Last night, you woke up and called me brother… To you that’s all we were to each other, right?”

“Yes.”

“This morning…” Thor paused, as though struggling to find the right words and force them into being, “You could have said no. You could have… I would never have forced you.”

Loki blinked up at him, the meaning filtering through his mind in a multitude of ways. “I know,” he said, “I wanted to. Even though I remember us being brothers. I… I love you Thor. I remember loving you, even if I had never quite realised how much. I have always loved you.”

Thor flagged slightly, as though Loki still had the power of magic and had simply sucked all the strength out of him, only the only spell Loki had spoken was one without any magic but still great power - the truth. He pressed a kiss to Loki’s forehead, stroking circles on Loki’s back as he held him close.

“If you get worse,” Thor said, no hint of a compromise in his tone, “I will take you to the doctor’s. But we can see for a day or two how you feel. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it was just a really intense dream, bad timing, got tangled in some emotions or something and I don’t know I’m a vocalist not a psychiatrist or neurologist.”

Loki nodded against his chest, savouring the feel of the warmth of Thor’s skin radiating out through the layers of fabric that separated him from strong muscles keeping him safe. Grounding him. Strong arms barely contained by the T-shirt holding him firmly, protecting him from the world until he was ready to face it.

“Did you eat?” Thor asked, as Loki appreciated being able to feel the rumble of his voice emanating from his chest as well as hearing it. 

“A bit,” he answered, feeling himself relax. It didn’t matter what was wrong, because he had Thor. He was clever. He would figure it all out. As long as he had Thor there to support him, he could do anything. He could be far more than just a god of mischief, just as Thor himself had claimed.

“I’ll make dinner,” Thor said, reassuringly, “I’ll look after you. I’m good at that, when you get down or are having difficulty… But this isn’t like that. Or maybe it is, it’s just different from normal. It doesn’t matter, I’ll take care of you. You’re going to be fine. Though, gods and magic and princes does seem like it fits delusions pretty well. I’ll make something you like, even if you don’t remember what you like.”

Loki pulled away slightly to look at Thor. “Normal?” he asked, “Is this normal?”

“No,” Thor answered slowly, “This isn’t normal, but you have had… moments.”

He raised his hand to stroke back Loki’s hair, and Loki caught sight of a scar running up Thor’s forearm. Too straight to be anything other than a blade, and Loki knew about blades. They had been his weapon in addition to his magic, so very different from mjölnir.

“I stabbed you,” he said, jumping to the conclusion, shocked and horrified. He had stabbed Thor plenty of times. He knew that and felt little remorse. That was different. They were gods. A mere stab wound such as Loki had inflicted on Thor would do no harm. It merely slowed him down and gave Loki a chance to escape. It had almost been a friendly childhood game, no hurt feelings but some hurt wounds that healed quickly and left no scars. This was different. They were mortals, with fragile bodies and short life spans. Knives were far more dangerous to them.

“No,” Thor said, “No.” He held Loki firm, preventing him from drawing away with his greater strength. He covered the scar briefly with a large hand, a strange introverted look passing over his face, then he reached out to cup Loki’s face gently. “No,” he repeated, “You were holding a knife. I took it from you. It… fell on my arm. It’s nothing.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought you might hurt yourself,” Thor said calmly, as though he could soothe Loki with just his rich voice and the touch of his fingers on Loki’s skin. Loki suspected there might be magic in them as he could feel himself soothed, lulled into relaxing from the tense coil of fear he had become. “So I took the knife from you. I bruised your wrist slightly,” a gentle hand caressed Loki’s wrist as though he could still see the marks, “And when I forced you to drop it, it fell on my arm. A superficial injury, nothing more. You were fine, I was fine. It was fine. It’s ancient history.”

Loki let himself curl back up against Thor’s chest, wrapping his hand around the scar in question, letting Thor hold him as though he was the most precious thing in the world. He buried his face deep into Thor’s beard, his nose pressed into the crook of Thor’s neck and his lips leaving the hint of a kiss on the skin he could reach.

The concert played itself to completion, the small Thor on screen ignored now that Loki had the real one, and the real one having turned the volume down as he took Loki into his arms as though it was simply the most natural thing to do in the circumstances. Silence filled the room, soft and gentle. Thor stroked through Loki’s hair, comfort and patience in every gesture.

“Are you hungry?” Thor asked, the rumble from his chest and the puff of his breath against Loki’s hair combining with the sound of his words to make Loki feel completely submerged in the sentence. 

He shook his head, even though he knew he should be. He had never been hungry when he was busy thinking of other things. His body always quietened its needs when his mind was active, whether it was his feelings running rampant or his desire for knowledge pushing him on. Ambition was its own fuel, though he had learnt to pause in its pursuit to nibble on something at least. He felt little desire to eat when he was miserable, and now even though he was safe in Thor’s arms he felt too distressed and confused to want to eat. He sighed, and then considered Thor. Thor, who had always eaten if not quite as much as Volstagg at least a large amount. More than Loki, and always more frequently.

“You’re hungry,” Loki said, a rumble from Thor’s stomach confirming his sensible conclusion.

“Yes,” Thor admitted without a hint of shame, “And you should probably eat too. So would you like to come with me to the kitchen while I cook for us? Is there anything you want? Or should I just make something good and warm?”

“Whatever you want,” Loki replied, knowing that he should move so Thor could stand but deeply reluctant to do so. He pressed his face back into the crook of Thor’s neck to gather his strength, angry and ashamed of himself. He had been a prince of Asgard that stood aloof from everything else. He had tried to invade the planet he was currently on. He had been a king of Asgard. A feared sorcerer.

He was still mentally berating himself when Thor shifted his position slightly, as though he weighed nothing. He felt Thor’s muscles bunch under him as Thor stood up, Loki still in his arms. Loki was impressed, even if he was also slightly annoyed at the same time. It seemed to him to be an unnecessary show of strength, even if it was also one that meant he could continue being a limpet rather than having to return to the dubious task of being a person. He liked being a limpet. If this was some form of reincarnation, he hoped that his next life he could just be some kind of limpet that lived permanently on Thor, but at the same time he knew he didn’t want anything like that at all.

Thor carried him through to the kitchen, then gently set him down before turning his attention to the abandoned shopping bags. Loki sat down on the chair he had used when he’d eaten his lonely lunch, the kitchen feeling warmer and more welcoming just with the addition of Thor’s presence. Thor put away the groceries he’d bought, dropping a kiss to the top of Loki’s head whenever he passed by, making Loki laugh. He knew that really he should offer to help, but he didn’t know where any of the things should go. He didn’t even know what some of them were, so he just watched Thor move about. He felt a brief twinge of guilt when Thor glanced at the plate he’d left unwashed and abandoned by the sink, but Thor said nothing and simply moved on to busy himself with placing pots on the hob.

After a moment of watching, his eyes drawn to the way Thor looked in his Midgardian clothing, Loki stood up. He liked the way the jeans framed Thor’s ass, just as much as he liked the way the T-shirt hugged his biceps. It was strange, this man he knew and didn’t know. So familiar and yet a mystery, while Thor seemed to know every single inch of him. So completely different from the way it had been, when Loki had at times known Thor’s mind better than Thor had, while Loki had always been a complete mystery. He slunk across the kitchen to wrap his arms around Thor, leaning against his back and eliciting an amused chuckle that vibrated through Loki.

“Just a moment,” Thor said, before turning from his cooking to face Loki, leaning against the counter carefully as though he wasn’t keen to test how much of his weight it could take. “Oh Loki,” he sighed, “It’ll be fine. I’m here.”

“What if I never remember what you do?” Loki asked, because he couldn’t see how he could possibly remember a life he had never lived, even if Thor seemed to think that was what he was currently doing. “What if this is the way I am from now on?”

“It’ll be fine,” Thor repeated, “I love you, nothing’s going to change that.”

“What if I’m just one of millions of Lokis in millions of universes and I’ve somehow slipped through the boundaries using my magic, but in doing so I’ve killed the Loki you knew? Taken him over?” Loki asked, thinking that he sounded mad even for the sort of thing he was used to dealing with before he ended up here were even the simplest of spells were non-existent.

Thor drew back and looked at him, thoughtfully as though making an effort to consider his words. “That sounds like one of your stories, and admittedly worryingly like something you’d do, but I don’t think that’s what has happened. You’re still the same old Loki I’ve always known, even if you’re confused. It’ll come back to you. And if it doesn’t… I’ve watched you learn. You’re clever, you’re quick. You’ll be fine.”

“But you believe me,” Loki asked, knowing the answer but still revelling in it. It had been years for him since a time when Thor had believed him wholeheartedly, without always suspecting his words and actions for hints of duplicity. Mainly because his actions and words had grown to always be duplicitous, but it still made a part of him loosen and relax to feel so completely trusted.

Thor petted his hair, shifting again so that he could tend to the cooking, even though Loki could tell it was a simple meal. Still, he was grateful that even though Thor was moving he wasn’t moving away from him. Loki had always prided himself on the fact that he could bury virtually anything deep down, maintaining a facade of things being alright to a degree even when he was falling to pieces inside. Even with Thanos… He simply didn’t think about that. He was a survivor and he had always known that. He just hadn’t realised as a child just how much of a survivor he was, how close he had come to potentially dying as a baby. But in that moment he didn’t have to be self-reliant, because Thor was there offering to be his anchor.

“You know me so well,” Loki said, feeling strange saying such words aloud. No one had ever truly known him, and Thor didn’t know him, not the Loki who had lied and cheated his way across the universe, but at the same time this Thor knew his Loki. He could still feel the ghostly traces of Thor’s kisses and fingers upon his body, knowing every response before it had been given. “But I don’t know you,” he whispered, because he didn’t. He had always thought that he knew Thor’s mind, that he knew his strengths and weaknesses, but he had never thought beyond that. He had never considered anything that wasn’t a consideration of the throne of Asgard or battle.

Thor was silent, but still, leaving space for Loki to speak. “I knew you,” he continued, “But I don’t know if anyone truly knew me. And now it’s different, I have no memory of us together, of your body, of anything like that. I don’t know what you like and what you don’t.” He looked up through his lashes, almost shyly even though he had never really been shy, seeking reassurance from Thor. It was disorientating, in many ways, to find something he had never realised he had been missing at the same moment that the rug had been pulled so comprehensively from under his feet. 

Maybe discovering something of the sort about his feelings for Thor on the spaceship in the ashes of Raganrok might have been different, drawn together in the cataclysm of the end of their world. Maybe if he’d caught the lie he had told himself, convinced himself was real, back when he had been growing up in Thor’s shadow things would have been different, though maybe he would have turned to destruction far earlier. Maybe if they’d ended up on Sakaar together, landing at the same time, they might have been caught in the Grandmaster’s web differently, their expected performances not the ones they had actually played out separately. But the realisation when he was not sure if all he had experienced was real made him afraid. He didn’t know how to return to the reality he still thought was real, because it had been so real he could still feel all the pain of Thanos’s hand around his throat. He had always been able to trust himself, in his ability to know himself, yet now he was adrift at sea and the only thing to cling to was Thor.

It was always Thor.

He had just been too blind to see that before. Thor was the one everything had always centred around, no matter how much he might have fought to be free.

“I’ll do my best to tell you everything I can think of about us,” Thor said thoughtfully, “And I am almost always willing to have you all over me, once I’ve finished cooking and we’ve eaten.”

“So no blowjobs in the kitchen?” Loki asked cheekily, eager to shift to jokes and mischief even as he wanted to let his misery out. He let Thor go, moving from him even as he mourned the loss of the warmth and comfort that came from being enveloped in his solid embrace, but Thor needed to prepare their meal so Loki simply watched him.

“Absolutely no blowjobs in the kitchen while I’m cooking,” Thor affirmed with a smile, “No burning down the building. Please.”

Loki started laughing, not loudly and with a slightly despairing edge to it. It sounded too much like something he would do. He had after all been the one to place Surtur’s crown in the Eternal Flame, causing Ragnarok. The mortal equivalent probably was to merely set fire to the building, only this time Thor was asking him not to rather than sending him on a trusted mission to destroy Asgard for Asgard. Thor gave him a slightly worried look, a plate of pasta in each of his hands as Loki trailed him to the table to sit down.

“What is it?” Loki asked, sniffing curiously at the food in front of him. It smelt good, and it made him feel hungry even though he hadn’t been when Thor had started cooking. Even if the idea of Thor cooking was one that should have been so ridiculous that he might have laughed himself sick at the mere thought.

“Pasta shapes with tomato and peanut butter sauce,” Thor answered promptly, watching Loki’s face carefully as though he were observing him for a hint of recognition. 

Loki scooped up some of it, looking at it with interest before eating a mouthful. “I like it,” he said decisively. It tasted of something else that he couldn’t quite identify, not so much a flavour but a feeling.

“Frigga used to make it when you were a child,” Thor said in between mouthfuls, managing to look both relieved at the fact that Loki liked the food and also extremely focused on eating his fill. His fill was not as much as the amounts an æsir might eat, but it was still an impressive volume.

“Are they bunnies?” Loki asked as he ate slowly, savouring the sensation. He wasn’t certain if he’d ever had pasta before. He couldn’t remember it at least. It was not a food he could recall ever having encountered on Asgard, and neither the Chitauri nor Sakaar had had anything that seemed to be quite the same. It was a good first experience. It was made better by Thor having been the one to cook, and by Thor sitting across the table from him.

“Yes,” Thor said with a smile, “Bunny pasta shapes, because they’re cute and I like them.”

Thor washed up once they were done, with Loki drying and putting the dishes away. He caught Thor’s occasional hopeful glance as he did so, feeling a twinge of disappointed guilt. It wasn’t that he remembered where the dishes were supposed to go because he remembered anything of this life, just that he was Loki. He had observed. He had opened all the cupboards earlier in the day. He had watched Thor retrieve everything he had used. That was all he could remember, and that was enough for the task.

It felt pleasant, like a nice routine to take part in, even though it was so different from what Loki was used to. There had always been servants to do menial tasks, and even the ones he chose to do himself because he was private and fastidious he had had magic to do them. He hadn’t needed to actually do chores since childhood, when Frigga had attempted to teach him and Thor to be responsible. What they had learnt was that trickery, magic and brute force were very effective, and that Odin had not appreciated the castle being set on fire even accidentally.

“Would you like me to show you some pictures?” Thor asked as he dried his hands, inviting Loki to follow him back to the living room where they sat down on the sofa together.

“Yes,” Loki answered, curling up against Thor into his welcoming embrace as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Thor withdrew his phone, and then paused on the lock screen as though considering it as well as the pictures held within its memory. Loki looked at it too. It was of the two of them, not looking at the camera but at each other. Thor was wearing a suit that Loki just knew he had been heavily involved in the selection of, as there was no way that Thor would have managed to select something that flattered him so perfectly. It was simple and understated yet there was still something in the line of the cut, the subtle hints of red and the arrangement of the buttons on the double-breasted jacket that reminded Loki of the armour Thor had always worn. The suit for all that it covered his body still managed to show off the sheer size and power of his muscles. The Loki in the photograph was also wearing a suit, though it was more glamorous than Thor’s. Nothing extravagant or over-the-top, but suiting him perfectly, mixing in the subtle elements of green and gold amongst the black just like he had always tended towards.

What really drew Loki’s attention was their faces though. The gentleness of Thor’s smile, the honesty in Loki’s expression. The love as they looked at each other, entirely unaware of the camera capturing the moment for eternity until it ended up on Thor’s phone.

“Frigga took the picture,” Thor said softly, reawakening his phone carefully so that the lock screen stayed visible for Loki, “It’s from our wedding. It’s been my lock screen for ages now but I still like seeing it every day.”

Loki withdrew his own phone, and handed it to Thor. “I don’t really know how to use it,” he admitted. “I can’t remember.” He tilted it, so that the picture of Thor came into view. “When was this?”

Thor laughed in a sort of happy surprise. “Just the other day,” he answered, “You normally change your lock screen all the time. You don’t like things to always be the same. It’s always something different. I guess you just wanted to have that picture for a few days.”

Loki could understand that. He did rather like the picture. Thor was shirtless, which was a good look for him, and clearly midway through lifting a rather impressive dumbbell, which paled in comparison to how impressive it made his biceps look. He was also smiling cheerfully into the camera, meaning that Loki could gaze at the picture and get the full force of his radiance.

Thor unlocked his phone, and started flicking between images. “Dad and Frigga,” Thor said, allowing their faces to fill up the small screen. Loki took the phone from him, gazing at it as though he could drink in their essence. They looked like he remembered them, just in Midgardian clothing, which was what Odin had worn the last time Loki had seen him anyway.

“They both died,” he said quietly, and Thor kissed his forehead gently. “I feel like, in some ways, it was my fault. Even if I didn’t kill them directly, I was responsible for the circumstances.”

Thor sighed, hugging him closer. There was nothing for him to say, really, as he had no knowledge of the life Loki had lived, but Loki appreciated his silent comfort anyway. The combination of neither accepting that Loki was to blame while at the same time not rejecting Loki’s sense of guilt that had tormented him more than he had ever admitted was in many ways a relief. Just a hug that meant it didn’t matter what the truth was, because he was loved. And here, Odin and Frigga were happily alive and smiling out of the screen at him.

“Well, they’re both alive and well,” Thor said, “I’ll take you to see them in a day or two if you want, but I don’t want to right away. They’ll worry, and I don’t want you to be irritated by dad’s inability to express his affection for you in a way that isn’t needlessly antagonistic or by Frigga fussing over you as you’re still her little baby.”

Loki nodded, understanding. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of meeting his parents who weren’t quite his parents. A part of him wanted to search them out so he could cling to them, sobbing his regret for all that had happened, but it hadn’t happened to them. He wouldn’t be gaining back his parents, they would be losing a son. He had hurt his parents enough times to not want to do so again, even if his hurting them had only come out of his own feelings of being hurt.

“This is Sif and Brunn,” Thor said, showing him another picture, “I sent you a picture of me and Sif earlier from the studio.”

“Valkyrie,” Loki whispered, surprised to see her face on the screen before him. The two women were leaning into each other, with Sif clearly being the one holding the phone to take the picture.

“Yes,” Thor said in pleased surprise, “Yes, Brunnhilde’s stage name is _The Valkyrie_ , it’s what all her musical projects are released under. We collaborated a while back and I think Sif and her started dating, but they have never officially said so and I don’t quite dare ask.”

“She was a Valkyrie,” Loki said, “She never gave her real name. I… didn’t know her for long, and we got off to a bad start. And Sif was a warrior. I don’t think she liked me much.” He wondered what had become of the Valkyrie. He didn’t know if she’d managed to escape from Thanos or not. There was a twinge of guilt hidden beneath it all, for his role in bringing her from Sakaar where she would never encounter Thanos to the death and destruction of his madness through association with him, who she didn’t even really like. He wondered about Sif, sent away so at least she was safe from Hela and Thanos, but presumably unaware that Asgard was no more. Alone and in the dark over everything, including the fact that the king who had sent her away had not been Odin trusting her with a special mission but Loki trying to keep her from discovering the truth.

Thor gave him a strange look. “You get on fine with Brunnhilde. Really well, actually. I get the impression she’s hard to get on with, but she is incredibly talented and I feel like you two always seem to have a lot in common. And Sif… Sif loves you. Really. I don’t think I could manage to be in a band with people who didn’t like you, even if they were my friends. I mean, there’s professionalism but also I wouldn’t want that.”

Thor swiped, showing the Warriors Three all holding instruments, “Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg,” he said. Loki nodded. They still looked recognisably the same, even if there were subtle differences from the versions he had known. He swallowed down the comment that he believed they too had disliked him and that he thought they were dead. Instead he just looked at them, familiar faces in unfamiliar clothing.

Thor seemed to sense his discomfort, putting the phone down to wrap his arms around him in a reassuring hug. Loki wanted to see all the pictures of this life, wanted to know every detail, but at the same time it just reminded him of what he had lost. Of what he had never had. So instead he let himself melt into Thor’s arms, resting his head against Thor’s shoulder.

“Are you going to the studio again tomorrow?” he asked lightly, the sort of question that maybe would be perfectly normal between the two of them, even though he only knew what the studio was due to having pieced it together from the context.

“No,” Thor said, “Not for the next few days. While I was cooking I texted the others and said you weren’t well, so I wasn’t going to come in for a bit. We’re only playing about with ideas and concepts really, and I can do that at home. There’s no rush.” He paused slightly and then added, “They all send their best, by the way, and asked if there was anything they could do to help.”

Loki had no idea how to react to that. He had no previous experience of anything that seemed like it. So instead he took Thor’s right arm, shifting his focus from their words to the tattoo that had intrigued him but never been the priority. A difference in this Thor from the one he had known, but not enough that it had taken precedence over anything else. Now he allowed himself to think of nothing else, looking carefully at it. Thor let him, relaxing his arm in Loki’s grasp.

It ran from the crook of his elbow to the crease of his wrist. Loki knew what it was, even if he had never seen a diagram quite like it before. “Yggdrasil,” he named it, tracing his fingers along the lines that he knew so well. All the mysterious pathways that connected the realms, marked down in ink but unlabelled.

“Yes.”

There was something else familiar about it, something more than it being Yggdrasil because it wasn’t the same as the Yggdrasil diagrams that Loki had spent years of his youth memorising. Like a spell that he had half-forgotten or a trace of something that he had overlooked. A secret to be discovered. There were runes too, hidden so that they had to be sought out.

“Loki,” he read out, knowing the shape of his own name well enough to find them no matter how well they had been disguised. Of course Thor would have his name written on his skin.

“Yes,” Thor said again, even as Loki avoided his eyes. He didn’t want to see hope that Loki might remember more, or sorrow at what had been lost, or anything else. He just wanted to push it aside for a moment, fixate on the lines that made up the world. Let the diagram sink in to his mind, fix itself inside him for future reference, as though it was the answer to all of his questions when Yggdrasil had never been an answer to anything. It simply was.

“Yggdrasil, just like your band,” Loki said, a question buried in amongst a statement. The swirls of the tattoo were the same as the logo, tendrils of the world tree holding the two concepts together. A secret, hidden in the twists and turns, just as Yggdrasil kept the secrets of the world that no one ever thought to question. 

“It took us a long time to come up with a name,” Thor said, “Though actually it was your idea. It was definitely better than anything the rest of us had suggested. Even Sif agreed it was better than _Sif and Some Blokes_.”

Loki laughed, turning his face into Thor’s chest to hide the strange sensation of pleasure that came from hearing that in this life Thor and his friends had listened to him. That Thor’s friends might even be his friends as well, not the awkward pity that he had felt growing up, the strange divide between them and him.

“First name we played under was actually _Ask Loki_ ,” Thor continued, “Right when we were just starting and were barely even a band but just a group of friends who wanted to be a band. There was an opportunity for performers and we signed up, only when Volstagg asked what we should put as our name I said ‘ask Loki’ meaning ask you for ideas and he just wrote _Ask Loki_ down.”

Loki would have really been perfectly happy to spend the rest of his life, whether it was a mortal life span or that of an æsir, lounging on the sofa doing nothing except leaning into Thor’s embrace. He might have objected had Thor moved to go do something else, but bed which promised sleep after another phase of lounging with Thor only without Thor’s very aesthetically pleasing belt that unfortunately had moved to dig into Loki’s side was appealing. It had not been a strenuous day by any means, not by his standards that had often involved days where he was performing complex spells while delicately manipulating all manner of powerful people into not killing him just yet, but he was exhausted. It might have been from being mortal, being without his usual magical abilities. It might have been from his warring emotions, as while he had always been at war with himself over every single feeling he had ever felt he had also grown accustomed to being able to ignore them all, and for the first time in a long time his defences had collapsed entirely, washed away by waves of a peaceful alternative where he was happily loved for who he was. It might have been because he could still remember the clear sense of being choked to death, and no matter that he had nearly died and used those near deaths to fake his death on more than one occasion it did not change the fact that for the first time he so clearly remembered dying.

He felt a sudden twinge of guilt when Thor paused in the doorway to their bedroom, remembering Thor’s words of the morning about changing the sheets. He could see Thor’s gaze taking in the room, exactly as he had left it. Sheets rumbled, the cum that had dripped onto them now dried. Another job for Thor to do, because the Loki he had left at home had not been the Loki he had thought it was, it was a Loki who was lost and displaced.

“You can’t remember how to use the washing machine, can you?” Thor sighed, moving to strip the sheets from the bed, no recrimination in his tone, only a sad weariness.

“I can learn,” Loki said, moving like a ghostly echo of Thor to help him, feeling like a shadow of a person. Thor smiled at him as they worked together, Loki less experienced but it was a simple enough task for him to copy Thor’s movements.

“Tomorrow,” Thor said, sounding tired and old, “Tomorrow we’ll do laundry. But first we’ll put on clean sheets, maybe the mice ones, and then sleep. Maybe sleep will do you some good, and you’ll wake up fine tomorrow.”

When the bed was made, now transformed from the more sedate covers into what Loki might have described as childish ones that he imagined held some sort of nostalgic value for either him or Thor, only he couldn’t remember and Thor wasn’t explaining. Now the sheets were pink, and the duvet looked like a rumpled duvet turned down so mice could play on it happily. Thor piled the dirty sheets in front of what Loki assumed to be the washing machine, a problem to be dealt with the next day. 

They brushed their teeth just as they had in the morning, only the atmosphere was different. Then Thor had been relaxed, smiling and happily starting his day, flirting gently with Loki as if running over familiar old patterns that soothed and comforted. Loki had been confused, but basking in the afterglow of Thor’s love, full of his own particular brand of optimism knowing that he could figure out anything and solve the problem before him. Now Thor was unsure, attempting to hide his worry but Loki had always been very capable of reading Thor, even now. He could see the concern dripping from him like the water dripped from his beard as he washed his face, every gesture an aborted uncertainty. The undoubtedly strange sensation of being beside someone who both was and wasn’t the person expected, as that was how Loki too felt, only he had gained something while Thor had lost something. 

He had gained an insight into his feelings, had gained a relationship he had never realised he had longed for enough that the destruction of all the worlds would have been worth it. Thor had lost all that he himself had gained, even as Loki mourned for himself and the Thor that had been bound and beaten by Thanos’s power, wishing he could return to his side and have everything he had here in that life. For what felt like the first time in his life, Loki had no plan, no scheme. No nothing. Just a sense of being adrift, not in the empty manner in which he had drifted through space to end up under Thanos’s influence, but in a sense of being out of place, though not in the same way as he had always felt out of place on Asgard. Just lost, finally powerless, but not afraid as there was nothing to fear. Confused, without any way of knowing what the answers might be except that they were there, in front of his eyes when he could understand them. 

They curled up together in the bed, Thor falling asleep easily as he always had leaving Loki alone in the dark, comforted only by the gentle rhythm of Thor’s snoring by his side. He lay there and wondered if any of it was true. Maybe he was dead and this was a reward for the manner in which he had died, bravely protecting Thor. Maybe he was dead and trapped in some kind of hellish dimension that would reveal its cruelties in due course. Maybe he had slipped into another dimension and there was no way back. Maybe he had slipped into another dimension and he just had to find his way back. Or maybe he was just mad, that there was something wrong with him that Thor had alluded to but hadn’t quite said, and that he had simply forgotten. Gone mad. Maybe he had always been mad. Something twisted and wrong inside him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 is not really the best day of Thor's life, but it could be worse.

Loki woke the following morning similarly to the way he had the previous one, the sensation of the sudden lack of Thor’s weight from the bed dragging him towards consciousness, but allowing him to drift in a warm cocoon of duvet covers and the feeling that he could sleep for longer. He woke properly when Thor returned, the bed dipping under his returned weight as the steaming cup of tea was placed by Loki’s side of the bed. It was a morning routine Loki could become accustomed to.

Gratefully, he allowed a hand to snake its way out from the warmth of the world under the covers to grasp at the cup, sitting up just enough that he could sip from it. It filled him with a sense of warmth and comfort. Of being loved.

He could have spoken to break the silence of the morning, but instead he turned so that he could lean forward and kiss Thor. It seemed like a better use of his lips. Thor’s arms wound their way around him, an action so natural that it almost went unnoticed, his fingers tangling in Loki’s hair to hold him closer, draw him deeper into the kiss.

“Loki?” Thor asked breathlessly as they broke apart, his eyes searching for recognition as Loki traced his fingers reverently down from Thor’s hairline and along the line of his jaw. Loki shook his head, guilty but pushing it away as he always had done with unwanted feelings. Unwanted guilt. It was merely a tool for him to torment himself, nothing productive. He had to move on, to rebuild, just in case there was nothing else. He had to have all of Thor just in case there was an ending, a hidden clause amongst the fine print. He accepted the slight shadow of disappointment in Thor’s expression, even as he absorbed the feeling of Thor’s skin under his touch, committing it to memory forever after.

“You said—” Loki started, his fingers making their way down Thor’s neck to his chest where their progress was inhibited by his pyjamas, only Thor sat up, cutting him off as he shoved the duvet away and tossed his pyjama top casually off the bed. He lay back down with a satisfied sigh, reaching up to pull Loki back down for another kiss, even deeper and more languid than the first.

There was something vulnerable in Thor’s expression and gaze when Loki sat back, looking down at him and marvelling at it. He had sought out Thor’s vulnerabilities for a lot of his life, noting all of his flaws for exploitation, but he had missed that he was one of them. A crucial part of Thor’s too big and too kind heart that was open for manipulation.

He looked away, unwilling to face that can of worms, letting his focus be drawn by the revealed flesh. He had always known that Thor was good-looking. A handsome prince with a winning smile, worthy of mjönlir and the throne. He had at times even accepted that he was envious and resentful, wishing for a hint of the sunlight that seemed to shine from him rather than the shadows he had always found himself relegated to. Now he just appreciated the sight before him, impressive muscles on a body that didn’t even need a warriors’ strength as this Thor was not a warrior.

He stroked thoughtfully, knowing that for Thor this was a pattern that had been repeated endlessly even if it was a new experience for him. Thor hummed gloriously at his touch, as though he were a musical instrument forged for Loki to play. Subtlety and silence had never been Thor’s forte. He worked his way downwards, massaging at times, mixing his touch with kisses and licks that sometimes turned into nibbles and bites. Thor melted under him, murmuring his name like a prayer. 

He continued moving downwards, discarding unwanted pyjamas as he went. He opted to ignore Thor’s hardening cock for the time being to focus on muscular thighs that he had known but not quite so intimately. Thor gave a mildly petulant whine and poked Loki in the chest with a toe, so Loki bit it. It was a gentle bite, however, and he was pretty certain that Thor liked. It wasn’t the first time he had bitten Thor. As children, he had bitten Thor a lot.

Thor disrupted his exploration by rolling over away from him to reach for something beside the bed. Loki simply took advantage of his movement and pounced on him to explore hitherto unexplored skin. He was used to taking advantage of all situations, and he would consider backstabbing to be one of his specialities. He was simply using his talent for a slightly different end.

Thor let himself flop over in a melted pool of muscle as Loki ran his fingers down his spine to his ass, enjoying the raw strength that relaxed under his touch. Thor sighed contentedly, his hips undulating gently, as though an entirely subconscious motion. Loki leaned forward, throwing a leg over his hips to press his body flush against Thor’s back, burying his face into Thor’s shoulder.

“I could just slip in right here right now,” he half whispered half teased, “I bet I could make you scream.”

Thor shuddered slightly under him, murmuring “Mmmmm no, no,” before pushing back at Loki and rolling over so they were facing again, wrapping his legs in amongst Loki’s. “No,” he repeated, pulling Loki firmly towards him and nuzzling his throat, hard cocks bumping together, eliciting soft moans and rough stubble against Loki’s sensitive neck.

Thor drew back, handing him something, presumably the thing that he had reached for. “No, I want to see you,” he said, as if remembering that he needed to repeat the most obvious things that had long been taken for granted. 

Loki blinked at him for a moment, frozen in place by Thor’s open encouragement when he had expected something else. He didn’t know what he expected, really. It wasn’t really anything he had thought about before. After all, why would he give any thought to Thor’s sex life, beyond the need to know his romantic attachments for purely practical reasons mostly concerning manipulation? He had never considered anything of the sort, beyond the perfectly rational conclusion that Thor preferred women, as that was all he had ever known Thor to chase after. It had simply been another manner in which Thor was clearly boring and not nearly as interested in experimenting as he had been. Only, maybe that wasn’t the case, if indeed that life had ever existed. 

His pause in activity had, unintentionally, lead to uncertainty tracing its way across Thor’s face, as though Thor too was having to renegotiate a relationship that had been so comfortably understood. “I just like seeing your face,” he murmured almost uncomfortably, as though revealing a heinous weakness, shy and uncertain. Something that to Loki seemed just wrong for Thor to feel or show, so he leant forward to kiss Thor on the tip of his nose. Thor relaxed, wrinkling his nose and laughing slightly. Loki reverently kissed him on both cheeks, one after the other and regretted that he hadn’t taken the opportunity to kiss his other cheeks when his ass was easily available, before finishing with his lips. 

“I’m a metal singer,” Thor added, his smile back and glowing up at Loki, “I can scream loud. We have neighbours, please be considerate.” That was a plea, but at the same time it was a challenge and Loki knew that no matter who he may have been Thor had to know he would take it as such. Something to be achieved, a rule that he could shatter as thoroughly as he could shatter Thor, remade and reformed into something else under his touch, pliable and malleable. 

Loki considered the bottle now in his hands, licking his lips. He didn’t need to know exactly what it was to know what it was. On Asgard he had used a pleasantly scented oil that he had many fond memories of. Amongst the Chitauri and Thanos he had discovered a hitherto undiscovered but passionate interest in celibacy. His brief stay on Sakaar made far more sense if he didn’t attempt to make it make any sense, and so he had simply accepted it for what it was. People had different tastes and biology, and that was fine. It had been an experience. He dripped the lube experimentally on his fingertips, Thor’s eyes following his movements.

So Loki moved slowly, savouring the act as though he could draw it out for all of eternity as Thor moaned his pleasure and frustration. Pleasure at the fingering. Frustration that it was no more than Loki’s fingers inside him. He drew it out, taking his opportunity to explore the limits of Thor’s patience in a much safer manner than he ever had previously, as the times he had done so in the past had involved Thor’s temper and ended with mjölnir being swung worryingly close to his head.

Thor was not quiet when Loki did finally sink into him, an act which he would have taken slowly only Thor took matters very literally into his own hands by using a firm grip on Loki’s hips and simply manoeuvring him. Loki didn’t even have the heart to protest at Thor’s patience having run its course, as it felt far too good to bother about details like torture for the sake of pleasure and also he was incredibly impressed by the demonstration of strength. For the first time ever he could openly acknowledge even to himself that he was turned on by Thor’s strength, even if Thor was mostly using his impressive physical abilities to be a soppy melted mess attempting to wrap the two of them as close as it was physically possible for two people to get while murmuring indistinct words of love. That aspect was toying with Loki’s heart just as much as his body was toying with his cock.

Loki rolled his hips and Thor moaned, his eyelids fluttering and for a moment Loki felt a sense of deja vu. Something passing through his mind, as though he could almost grasp at the memory. Vague and ill-formed, a strange ghost that echoed incoherently inside of him. He leant forward, following a hint of a phantom, and pressed his hand firmly over Thor’s mouth to stifle the sounds. As though he could almost remember a time when they had been in the same position, only it was not neighbours in the flat above them that might hear but people closer.

Thor’s eyes flew open, wide blue eyes staring deep into his own with a sense of something that Loki couldn’t quite put a name to so he focused on pleasure. Hedonism was its own reward, a good distraction from thoughts that he couldn’t untangle. Thor moaned against his palm, a hint of wet kisses that Loki could almost swear he had felt before, in reality or in a long-forgotten dream. 

He kept those thoughts firmly at arms length as they finished, allowing Thor to push his hand away and pull him down to a kiss, the perfect distraction even if it too felt like a scene that had been rehearsed until it felt comfortably familiar, a culmination of experience that he couldn’t consciously remember. He ignored the haunted expression on Thor’s face as he mopped up the cum, attempting to keep the sheets at least clean of it. He let it go unspoken as they washed and moved towards getting dressed. He left it, even as it itched away at him, something he didn’t want to scratch away at. Something he daren’t poke.

Thor let him have his silence, humming as he rustled through his clothing to chose what to wear. Loki could have guessed even before he pulled them on, simple jeans and another T-shirt with a mildly mediocre joke about beards. Loki wasn’t sure if he should be surprised with the revelation that Thor had more than one. When Thor decided he liked something, he tended to go all in.

Loki hadn’t bothered investigating his own clothing the previous day, but now he did so with some curiosity. His tastes were, obviously, far superior to Thor’s. There were no beard related jokes anywhere that he could see. Rather the clothing was elegant and refined, with a slight tendency towards the gothic. He dressed causally, with interest in the difference in style from what he was used to. 

“I have women’s clothing,” he said as he watched Thor eat breakfast, half a statement of fact from what he had observed in his part of the wardrobe, half in question. It seemed to be the case that just as he had remembered, Thor needed a rather large amount of food regularly and Loki felt no particular desire to eat anything yet as he had always hated breakfast for stealing precious minutes that could be spent in bed and hated how cheerful Thor had tended to be over breakfast. Now he didn’t really mind, but he felt no great hunger and he got the impression that Thor didn’t expect him to eat. 

“Yes,” said Thor carefully around spoonfuls of muesli and yoghurt, “Yes you do. Sometimes you wear women’s clothing. It looks good on you. Everything looks good on you. It’s just one of those things you’ve always done.”

Normally when Loki had worn women’s clothing he had accessorised it with a female body, though there were exceptions such as the incident when Thor had also ended up wearing a dress. He rather liked that he had still been able to express himself without the convenience of magic to aid him. A lot could be achieved with lace.

“Actually - funny story. I’ll tell you about the time the band nearly broke up,” Thor said, busying himself with washing up his bowl while Loki despaired about Thor’s idea of what constituted a funny story. He already knew, from centuries with Thor and the two T-shirts featuring what passed as beard jokes, that Thor’s sense of humour left something to be desired. “Well,” Thor added cheerfully, mostly to himself or the sink, “The time the band almost kicked me out, really.”

“It was ages ago,” he continued obliviously, “But Sif with that annoying ability of hers to arrive right at the worst moment somewhere I genuinely didn’t expect her to be, caught me kissing this gorgeous lady while out on a date at the Viking ship museum in Roskilde. Hell only knows why Sif was there, except clearly to spoil my fun, though I suppose I am grateful she didn’t do anything there. Instead she just told everyone, and when I showed up to the studio the next day it wasn’t actually very funny at the time, but with hindsight I can see the funny side and appreciate how much they all care about you.”

Loki stared at him dumbstruck. He had told plenty of funny stories in his time. He had even heard a few, even if they rarely compared favourably to the one he could himself tell. He did not consider this to be one. Even if it was ancient history, it still made his heart clench and this new life seem less the utopia he had initially considered it to be. More a personalised hell for torment, showing him all he truly longed for and then desecrating it.

Thor turned to face him, drying his hands and his big smile froze. A frown appeared as he considered Loki withdrawing into himself, and he said in a rush as though he had forgotten that Loki lacked the pieces of the puzzle to put it together the right way himself, “It was you. She was you, Loki, Sif just didn’t realise. And didn’t believe me until you backed me up…” He crouched down by Loki with a sigh, his head bowed. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t a very funny story was it. Loki… it’s only ever been you.”

“What about Jane?” Loki asked, deep-seated jealousy welling up now that he had an outlet. A feeling that had been provoked, allowing him to ignore some of the others. Anger and resentment were easier and more familiar; there was something reassuring about that. 

“Jane?” Thor asked, clearly baffled, “I don’t even think I know a Jane?”

“American astrophysicist,” Loki clarified, which judging by Thor’s expression didn’t narrow it down. Either that or it narrowed it down far too much, to a category that he would have no reason to encounter in this life. Not that there should have been any reason for a god of thunder to fall at her feet either. 

“I really don’t think I’ve met an American astrophysicist called Jane,” Thor said slowly, “And I’ve definitely never dated one.”

“What about Sif?” Loki asked, revisiting the old sense of having been discarded rather than the newer one of Thor having turned his attention away from Loki and towards a mortal on Midgard.

“Sif?” Thor said, “Sif. We kissed once when I was maybe fourteen, which we both agreed was a colossal mistake, and since then she’s exclusively dated women, so I’m not sure if I should be offended or not, but we’re really just friends.”

His head dropped back down, long blonde hair falling over his face obscuring it from view. He looked weighed down and dejected. Loki couldn’t help but think that crouching on the kitchen floor was no place for a king of Asgard when he noticed the tremble of Thor’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” Thor ground out, the words distorted by tears as Loki leapt to his feet swearing under his breath.

He quickly cast his mind about, remembering the box of tissues in the living room and, with that, the sofa which would be more comfortable than the cold tiles of the kitchen floor. He grabbed at Thor’s arm, to pull him upwards rather than allow him complete his collapse downwards. Thor stood, but Loki’s hopes of pulling him through the flat did not come to fruition as Thor instead wrapped his arms around him and clung on for dear life. He buried his face in Loki’s shoulder, sobs wracking his body. After a moment, Loki wriggled just enough that he could free an arm without breaking the hold Thor had on him, allowing him to snake an arm, like a viper poised to pounce, to rub Thor’s back soothingly.

There were definitely times in his life when he had wanted to break Thor down, but as it happened he only ever managed to achieve it when to wasn’t what he wanted. That thought haunted him as he murmured soothing but ultimately nonsensical and meaningless words, waiting for Thor’s grip to relax slightly.

“Let’s go sit on the sofa,” he suggested gently when the worst of the tension seemed to fade. 

Thor released him, turning his face away with a guilty, “Sorry,” that Loki opted to ignore. Apologies were another thing he had often longed for from Thor, but not like this. Instead he used his freedom to tug at Thor’s hand, leading him from the kitchen to the sofa, pushing him down with a firm hand. Thor sat down gracelessly, providing no resistance to Loki. Thor blew his nose loudly on the tissue Loki offered him, before returning to crying.

Loki sighed in resignation, sitting down beside him and pulling Thor to him, letting him bury his face in his chest as Loki stroked his fingers through Thor’s long hair. It was reassuring in many ways that Thor had long hair, just the way he always had, even though Loki hadn’t disliked the haircut he had been given on Sakaar. Nothing could really change the fact that Thor was beautiful. Now he could appreciate that without jealously or anger. He still didn’t quite know how he felt, about Sakaar or about Ragnarok. There had been hope, and then there had been Thanos. Gently, he rested his head against Thor’s. It had been too long since he comforted someone sincerely, and he felt out of practice even ignoring the mysteries and uncertainties of the situation.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said again, eventually, when he started to pull back sniffing but no longer actively sobbing. His eyes were red and watery, his voice thick with crying. 

“I’m sorry too,” Loki said quietly, even if they were apologising for different things. There was a lot for him to be sorry for, if he made himself think about it. Just as there was a lot that he would have liked Thor to show remorse for. It left an unpleasant taste in Loki’s mouth to think about it so he pushed it away, reaching out to cup Thor’s face.

Thor smiled weakly, putting his hand over Loki’s and turning his face so he could kiss Loki’s palm. “I’m sorry for whatever I did to hurt you in… your version of events,” Thor said hesitantly, loathe to dismiss Loki’s memories but unable to fully acknowledge them as being as real as Loki remembered them. Loki couldn’t blame him for that, not in the world they were in that lacked magic. He wouldn’t have blamed Thor for being wary of his words after all his lies, so the fact that an effort was being made to believe in Loki’s sincerity made him regret the loss of trust that he remembered them sharing. “Maybe you should tell me more about what you remember. Or… I don’t know. I’m just trying my best to not google sudden memory loss because I know it’ll just be awful things that I don’t even want to contemplate.”

Loki ran a hand up his arm, feeling the slightly raised flesh of Thor’s scar under his fingers. A vague reminder that while this Thor might never have grieved for him in the way he had made his brother grieve, he had contemplated the need for it. Asgard seemed so real to him, he could almost smell it when he closed his eyes. He could remember perfectly how to cast spells, even if he couldn’t actually weave any magic here in this realm without magic. And yet, at the same time, he wondered if it was really real. If he wasn’t just a little bit mad and that his memories would return, throw the fantasy of being a god into the realm of nothing more than a distorted dream that had temporarily eclipsed everything else. A part of him wished that to be true, even as another part of him wished to find a way away from this world that seemed to have everything he ever dreamed of just so he could seek out his brother and stop his grieving.

“I’ll go to the doctor,” he promised quietly, “Just let me adjust. See if memories return. See if anything changes.”

Thor nodded, pulling Loki back into a close embrace. He sighed heavily by Loki’s ear, nuzzling gently against his cheek. Loki searched for something light-hearted to say to make Thor laugh, but his mind was stuck on a strange combination of regret and tenderness. 

“I put Odin in a retirement home,” he said, realising as he said it that probably the story of the time he had turned Thor into a frog would have been funnier as it had been an innocent piece of mischief rather than the usurpation of the throne of Asgard. It didn’t matter, as Thor snorted with surprised laughter. He relaxed slightly at that, hoping that he wouldn’t need to provide the context. He felt that in many ways, given the state of Asgard and the mood Odin had been in, he had been somewhat justified in his actions, but he also knew that Thor had not been the least bit amused when he had found out.

Thor drew back slightly, so that he could look Loki in the eye. “You always did joke about doing that,” he said slowly, “It’s from a book by an author you like, I think. Odin in a retirement home, shirking his responsibilities. There’s a Thor in it too, I think he gets glued to a floor after counting all the stones in Wales or something.”

Loki blinked at him, surprised by that. Thor stood up, leaving Loki confused on the sofa to go to the bookshelves. He ran his eyes along the spines, selecting one and bringing it back to hand to Loki. Loki read the title _The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul_ as he took it uncertainly, turning it in his hands.

“He also created _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ , which is set mostly in space,” Thor continued. Loki felt his confidence that his memories of Asgard were real reduce, coming unstuck and trembling in confusion just as the foundations of Asgard had trembled under Sutur’s wrath. Thor watched him carefully, as though unsure what sort of reaction he might have, before returning to sit beside him, drawing him close again. 

“I think you - Thor - went searching through the galaxy searching for the infinity stones and information about them, though I don’t think you found anything,” Loki said, not really knowing where Wales was or why anyone would count the stones in it. He didn’t really remember much about Thor’s pointless quest either, except that it had kept him from spoiling Loki’s fun on Asgard for a while.

Thor hummed slightly, resting his head against Loki’s as though he just liked being close to him. Loki leaned into the embrace, drawing strength and certainty from it, when he felt he had none of him own. There was something reassuring about being held by Thor. Something strangely pleasant in feeling needed, as though Thor both wanted and needed him there by his side and in his arms for the rest of eternity. What was real was irrelevant in comparison with Thor who was the most real thing Loki had ever encountered. 

Loki suspected that they could have remained in that position for a long time, had a chime not rung out throughout the flat, causing them both to jump slightly. Loki in surprise and Thor into action. Loki knew that he would have been perfectly content to never move again. He wanted to be able to focus on feeling warm and loved in Thor’s arms, blocking out all the inconvenient thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him with their confused fears. 

“It’s the door,” Thor explained, as he went down the corridor to their front door to press a button and mutter into some kind of intercom. Loki followed, watching him from down the corridor, hovering in the living room door unsure if he wanted to investigate or bury himself in the book still held loosely in his hands. He wanted to know who was visiting. He didn’t want to share Thor with anyone else. 

He ceased his dithering when Thor opened the door, tossing the book to the sofa and giving in to his curiosity. He ducked under Thor’s arm, forcing Thor to wrap it around him, finding himself face to face with Hogun as he did so. If Hogun had noticed the slight redness that still lingered around Thor’s eyes, he stoically said nothing. The Hogun Loki remembered rarely spoke unless it was strictly speaking necessary, and even then he used as few words as was physically possible. He was almost certainly dead. This Hogun looked at him, nodded in a friendly manner and held out a jar to him. At a loss for anything else to do, Loki took the jar.

“Umeboshi,” Hogun said, as though that was all the explanation needed, “Homemade.”

Loki blinked, switching his gaze from Hogun to the jar in his hands, full of something he didn’t recognise. He still appreciated the gesture of a gift, unexpected as it might be. “Thank you,” he said softly, oddly touched. He didn’t really remember being given gifts out of pure altruism much. It came of both being a prince and of being the prince who was not Thor. He knew that there were political benefits to having the favour of a prince, an awareness that had helped to erect a wall between him and anyone who wasn’t Thor. He had also known that what others did for him out of social obligation they would do willingly for Thor, that Loki’s carefully planned charm rarely outshone Thor’s natural charisma. 

It was probably the wrong response, as Hogun shuffled awkwardly, nodding at Thor and muttering vaguely, “Need to go, bass lines, you know,” before leaving. The heavy door swung shut after him, leaving Loki with Thor and his newly acquired jar of pickles. He looked up at Thor in confusion.

“Japanese pickles,” Thor explained, which didn’t really help much. “I think they’re disgusting but you love them.”

Loki unscrewed the lid carefully as he walked to the kitchen to store his jar, picking one of the shrivelled red things out and popping it in his mouth. He closed his eyes briefly, savouring the new yet strangely familiar flavour. “They’re amazing,” he said to Thor as Thor took the jar from him to place it in the fridge. Loki watched his jar disappear from view sadly, before turning to spit the stone out into the bin. The savage taste of salt lingered in his mouth.

“I’m not kissing you until you have something else to get rid of the taste,” Thor said bluntly, but without malice. He seemed more relaxed, no longer miserable and returning to his usual optimism. If anything, his tone and expression spoke of affection. Loki wrinkled his nose and pouted, which to his relief made Thor smile. “Not even when you pout so temptingly.”

Under Thor’s watchful eye, Loki made himself a cup of tea. The kettle was an easy enough electronic device to use. The tea was easy to brew. Thor also made himself a cup of coffee with the water, which he carried through to the living room.

Loki returned to the book and the sofa. Thor set his mug down on the coffee table, where steam curled up from it, heading to the corner and selecting a set of dumbbells that looked, for want of a better word, heavy. Loki had been intending to flick through the various books now by the sofa while talking to Thor, but once again he found that reading held less interest to him than what he could otherwise experience. It was not something he had ever tended to feel before, having often preferred to read over most things, with the sole exception of playing with magic.

As Thor lifted his dumbbell, taking a sip of coffee at the end of each set, Loki wriggled his way to lie on his stomach, peeking over the arm of the sofa at him. He had watched Thor train in the training grounds plenty of times. He had even trained with Thor on the training grounds before. Back then though he had, whether he had known it or not, been restraining himself from truly looking. He had been consumed with jealously. Now he was consumed with something different.

Thor grunted softly as he went through the motions. Loki licked his lips without even meaning to, watching muscle move beneath Thor’s T-shirt, which he felt a slight resentment of. 

“Thor,” he said huskily, and might have been embarrassed by the lust it revealed had Thor not looked at him with the slightest hint of pink flushing his cheeks. It could have been from physical exertion. It could have been from something else. “This morning,” he asked, “Do we do that a lot?”

“Yes,” Thor answered breathily, setting aside his dumbbell and moving to kneel beside the sofa, “Yes I’d say we have sex regularly.”

Loki turned to better look at him. He ran his hand down Thor’s shoulder to rest on his bicep, which Thor flexed so he could feel the hard muscle swelling under his touch. Loki gasped slightly. Thor looked partly smug at that reaction and partly hopelessly infatuated, which as far as Loki was concerned made up for the smugness. Loki tugged him into a kiss, savouring the sensation. 

“I would say I bottom at least half of the time,” Thor continued seamlessly as they pulled apart, before moving so that he was leaning over Loki on the sofa, lying above him supported by arms that trembled slightly at the strain of doing so so soon after heaving weights about. Thor kissed him again, softly and slowly.

“It felt familiar,” Loki admitted, both afraid to admit as such in the fear that it might give Thor false hope and also desperate for an answer, “When I put my hand over your mouth.”

A cloud passed over Thor’s face briefly, and he sat up to take the strain off his arms. What Loki had lacked in comparison to him in strength he had always made up for in grace, flexibility and speed, so he wrapped his limbs around Thor as he moved, forcing Thor to take him with him. The amused yet resigned look on Thor’s face suggested that it was a technique Loki had used plenty of times before.

“God you’re beautiful,” Thor sighed, looking up at him.

Loki, comfortable in his lap and arms, gazed down at him. A face that was familiar but different in tiny ways. Two eyes, though he hadn’t quite adjusted to the shock of Thor losing one before that reality ceased to be his. Long hair, though he hadn’t quite adjusted to the short hair either. Light crows feet crinkling by his eyes, gentle traces of mortal ageing showing years of smiles. He bent down to kiss Thor, enjoying the gentleness of the kiss combined with the rough scrape of stubble against his lips.

“The first time we ever had sex,” Thor said softly, “It was like that. It was just before I moved out for university so we were still living at home. I…” he blushed slightly, “I might have promised you that I could be quiet.” Loki snorted at the mere idea, and Thor gave him a rueful but unembarrassed shrug. “I wasn’t very successful, you get at least half the blame, so you put a hand over my mouth. We didn’t wake up dad or Frigga, so it worked I guess.”

Loki frowned down at him, the words painting an image he could almost picture in his mind, as though the memory was still there buried under the rubble of the ruins of what had been Asgard. “The same position,” he added, certain of that even though Thor had done nothing more than imply it. It was a position that had felt familiar, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Thor nodded, a soft smile on his face as though contemplating happy memories.

“And that is the tale of how you took my virginity,” Thor said. “Well,” he added as an afterthought, “Took is the wrong word really, isn’t it? More like, I eagerly gave it and promptly begged for more of the same. I am pretty confident you weren’t a virgin. You just causally had lube and condoms, and it felt like you knew exactly what you were doing…”

Loki dropped a casual kiss onto his nose. “You’re older than me,” he said, knowing that it was in part non-sequitur but also feeling certain of that fact. He had lived centuries with Thor being older than him. The words felt right, as though he knew it to be a fact here too. As though he could almost remember everything that Thor was saying himself. 

“Mhmm,” Thor hummed, “By about two years.”

“It feels familiar,” Loki admitted, wary about giving Thor hope that he really had just had a bad dream that had buried his memories temporarily. At the same time, he was wondering about that himself. It sounded so real, with every new detail bringing forth a sense of something else, as though it was simply hidden inside of him. And yet, he couldn’t quite give up on his memories of Asgard. That too seemed so real. He could still feel the heat of the eternal flame rising up to bring forth Sutur and destroy the realm.

“I want to meet mother and father,” he said suddenly, making the decision without really thinking it through. He didn’t know if it was sensible, but he wanted to see his parents. He could only remember the painful agony of everything that had surrounded Frigga’s death, and the lingering sense of all the bad feelings that had still hung between him and Odin. He wanted to see them alive and well, where he was not imprisoned, where he had never fallen from favour or accidentally played a role in their deaths. He wanted their smiles, to be able to hug them and feel like there was hope in the world beyond just Thor.

“They’ve moved somewhere smaller, now that they’re getting older and it’s just the two of them, so you won’t be able to see your old room,” Thor said, “But I can call them and see if we can go over for dinner.”

He paused, a frown flittering its way across his face. “Idiot,” he murmured, clearly to himself, before saying to Loki, “I know something that might help you a bit, if you let me up.” 

Reluctantly, Loki clambered off Thor. Thor stood, leaving Loki and the room briefly, only to return shortly with a small notebook bound with black moleskin.

“One of the most precious things I own,” Thor said, handing it over. It was a nice notebook, though Loki wouldn’t necessarily have chosen such words to describe it himself. “Poetry,” Thor explained, “You gave it to me ages ago. I think I’m the only person in the world aside from you who’s read it.”

Loki turned it over in his hands, stroking the cover. There was something almost familiar about it, as though he had held it before. He supposed that his hands had, even if his mind had no such memory.

“I’ll call Frigga,” Thor said, even though Loki was no longer focusing on him. He pulled out his phone, wandering away to make the call as Loki carefully opened the notebook.

Loki recognised his own handwriting, even if it was written in a different script from the one he had used on Asgard. He read, noticing almost in an abstract manner that it was written not in the English of his novels or Thor’s songs but in the Danish they used to speak to each other. Somehow that made it more personal, as if the feelings that flowed from the words weren’t entirely drenched in hidden emotion.

Lunch was a much more pleasant affair when it was shared with Thor rather than with nothing but uncertainty and confusion as his companions. The prospect of seeing his parents at dinner gave Loki both something to look forward to and something to dread. Afterwards, Loki returned to reading his own words back to himself, as though through feeling he could reawaken the memories he half wished were real, accompanied by Thor strumming idly away at a guitar and humming phrases to himself. Pieces of songs to be put together, just as Loki was trying to put himself back together again.

“You gave me the notebook,” he said suddenly.

“Mmhmm,” Thor agreed, making a note of something that Loki presumed to be musical. He played the same set of chords again, a frown of concentration on his face, before turning to look at Loki in surprise. “Yes,” he said, the words having made their way through his consciousness to understanding, “Yes, I gave you the notebook for your birthday when we were teenagers because I never knew what to get you and you were always scribbling away in notebooks so I just got you a nice notebook. I wasn’t expecting you to give it back to me years later with…” he swallowed and gestured vaguely at the notebook, “You know. I think you said it was because Frigga had asked if you had ever actually told me you loved me. So you did and then some.”

Loki could see himself forgetting to mention a crucial detail like that. He could also imagine that Thor had been suitably touched at the sentiment, even if it had been a bit late. He had a vague feeling of Thor having demonstrated exactly how touched he had been by making both of them late. For someone sculpted in hard planes of muscle out of the raw power of thunder storms, Loki knew that Thor was really soft inside. He needed lots of cuddling on the sofa and soft kisses curled up in each other’s arms in bed.

“I do love you,” he said. He knew he had said the words before, but they had been accompanied by all manner of chaos and betrayal so maybe they had been tarnished by that. Thor just smiled at him, letting himself lean over so much that he tipped over to lie with his head in Loki’s lap, gazing up at him with bright blue eyes full of love. Loki put the book on his face, which made him laugh, so Loki had no regrets. 

The afternoon passed, until it was time for them to brave the outside world. Loki knew that he should be absorbing everything he could about the world both inside and out, but at the same time his focus was almost entirely on Thor just like it always was. The prospect of standing under the sunlight appealed after a brief stint of living in the cramped darkness of a spaceship, even if he was beginning to lose faith that it had been a real spaceship. A part of him celebrated the sensation of memories reawakening, thawing out of the ice into reality even if they were vague, and a part of him dreaded it as it suggested the memories of Asgard would fade to nothing more than a fantasy. 

Thor fussed over Loki as they put on shoes and coats, ensuring that Loki was wrapped up warmly in a rich green scarf, so Loki pushed him against the corridor wall and kissed him, deeply and firmly. Thor relaxed into Loki’s grip, the nervous tension melting away under Loki’s touch. He sighed slightly as the kiss broke, burying his face between Loki’s scarf and neck, allowing himself to be wrapped up in their shared warmth.

The air was cool, but nothing like Jotenheim. Loki said as much, wrapping him hand around Thor’s arm anyway. It wasn’t that he was cold and needed to be close to Thor because he was a constant source of warmth, but rather that he needed to be close to Thor because he was a constant source of love.

“You do often say that winter here isn’t anything like as cold as it was in Hokkaido,” Thor said with a shrug, dropping a casual kiss to the top of Loki’s head. 

“Hokkaido?” Loki asked, snuggling in closer. The word sounded familiar.

“North Japan. You lived there with Frigga when you were quite young. I imagine that’s where you got your taste for all sorts of horrible Japanese pickles, which you then proceeded to bond with Hogun over.”

Loki laughed, enjoying the evening. He knew that had he been the one to utter those words they would probably have been barbs aimed to harm, but from Thor they were nothing more than affection, every edge saturated with love. He let Thor describe their route, the shops they would go to and the restaurants they had eaten in. The bus stop that would take them to the library if they didn’t want to cycle. The fact that they could have cycled but it was nicer to walk, as they could do that arm in arm. Loki had no memory of ever riding a bike so he was quite glad not to see if he could manage it through muscle memory alone. They looked different from horses, given the wheels instead of legs and lack of a head.

There was nothing familiar about the flat they arrived at, but there was something painfully familiar about the couple inside it. He had spent years pushing away the regret of the circumstances of Frigga’s death. His last words to her, unintentionally helping the enemies that killed her, every single detail. But now she was there alive in front of him. He barely paid any attention to anything else, all of his focus on her and how much he had missed her. How glad he was to be able to hug her as though he was a child being comforted again, no matter that he was a grown adult and had been for years. For centuries as far as he could remember but even for the mortal body it had been years.

“Oh Loki,” she sighed into his chest. She seemed smaller than he remembered, but that might have been because she was such a towering pillar in his life, an influence far greater than her actual physical size. Loki didn’t know what Thor had told her and he didn’t care. He had his mother back. It made dying worthwhile, especially dying for a worthy cause. He had her again and he had Thor’s unconditional love, the kind of love he could never have hoped for. 

A responsibility to the paths of Yggdrasil, to the silent and unspoken oath he had sworn as Thor was finally crowned King, and a responsibility to the shattered remains of the people of Asgard held him even as he wished it away, wished it all to have been a dreadful fever dream that meant nothing. A nightmare that had never been real. All he wanted was to remain there, to remember that life and keep living it. That it would be over in the blink of an eye compared to the lifespan he had been accustomed to meant nothing. He would trade centuries of grief for those precious moments of true happiness he had found.

He smiled weakly at her as she drew back, stroking his cheek affectionately as she did so. He could feel tears threatening to fall and blinked them away, swallowing down the reawakened grief for a woman who was not dead. Instead he let her lead him through a flat he didn’t recognise to a man he did. Odin looked much the same as he had the last time Loki could remember seeing him, when he had died and unleashed Hela onto Asgard. 

“Odin,” he said as a greeting, because he had never considered Odin to be his father. He had never wanted or needed family beyond Frigga. It hadn’t just been the clash of personalities that had led him to refuse to even consider viewing Odin as family when Frigga had married him, just as it had been an uncomfortable combinations of reasons that had made him reject just as firmly any concept of him and Thor being stepbrothers. His stance had softened towards Odin over the years, just as Odin had grown to simply accept him for who he was. They cared, even if it was not open or easy.

Loki froze momentarily. Odin, either not noticing or choosing to ignore his reaction, simply nodded in acknowledgement and gestured to the table where the plates were already laid out ready for them to eat. Mentally combing though all of his memories, Loki sat down in startled confusion. Fragmented tendrils of memories of his life seemed to flicker in and out of his awareness, enough that he could almost grasp onto the narrative and hold it but not enough to override the memories of being raised believing he was Odin and Frigga’s biological son, brother to Thor and prince of Asgard.

Thor reached out to touch his cheek briefly, nothing more than a momentary caress of concern before withdrawing sharply. He sat down beside him, giving him a concerned glance as a follow up to the almost aborted touch, as though noticing Loki’s sudden uncertainty brought on by his strange certainty of remembering the most fleeting of glimpses. Loki wanted to reach out, to wrap a hand around Thor’s strong arm so close to him but at the same time now feeling so far, or to simply bury his face in Thor’s broad chest in the warmest hug known to man. He did nothing, the sense of the barrier between them firm and absolute. He could see Odin’s lips purse at the slightest hint of the affectionate gesture as much as he could see Thor’s restraint, drawing himself in even as Loki knew that his first language was that of the body, that Thor’s first reaction was always to draw Loki in towards himself to keep them close. But all he knew of the two of them that he could have any certainty of had been when they were alone, the two of them in their flat, not here under Odin’s single eye that pierced through everything with the same impatient irritation that Loki remembered, the King surveying his Kingdom. 

“How’s the rest of Yggdrasil doing?” Frigga asked as she bustled in with the potatoes, smiling warmly in direct defiance of the stilted silence that had fallen.

“They’re all well,” Thor answered cheerfully, standing to help her even though there was no need. The table was already laid and she shooed him back to his seat in what Loki thought was a repetition of a scene that had played itself out millions of times before. “We’re just playing about with ideas for new material at the moment. I feel like there’s a few directions I’m interested in considering, but nothing concrete yet.”

Odin helped himself to the food, with Frigga gesturing for the rest of them to follow suit. Thor took advantage of reaching past Loki to drop a hand to his thigh, giving a gentle squeeze, his hand knowing where to fall without his focus ever seeming to falter from spooning piles of food onto his plate. Loki wished slightly that he could shuffle closer, missing Thor’s natural affection now that it had been reigned in, making him even appreciate how physically close they had been in his memories of them as brothers even when they had been enemies on opposite sides. Now Thor beside him felt as far away as Bornholm, even if Loki was only vaguely aware of Bornholm’s existence. He hadn’t known it before, but now he was vaguely aware of a pleasant holiday, just him and Thor by the sea as though they didn’t already live in a city on the seafront.

“Loki, do you remember Mrs Moriyama?” Frigga said, making conversation rather than allowing an awkward silence to fall. Odin gave Thor an irritated look which Thor ignored, surreptitiously letting his gaze drift from his plate to Loki. Loki opened his mouth, caught in ignorance with no real hope for answering, the name meaning little to him, when Frigga simply continued without an answer. “Well,” she said, “You probably wouldn’t, you were only young. An older lady in Hokkaido who always used to give you sweets and knitted you a pair of mittens once.” Loki couldn’t remember her, but there was a vague sense of a pair of purple mittens made of soft wool. He didn’t think he was the type to have ever been fond of mittens, as they reduced his natural dexterity. He nodded thoughtfully, aware that she had likely existed at some point and relieved that he was not expected to remember the details beyond feeling that the shade of purple his mind was providing was not one he would chose for himself. “I had a message from her daughter. She died last week. Passed away peacefully in her sleep.”

Loki stumbled through an attempt at expressing something, he wasn’t quite sure what. Surprise maybe. Or condolences. Frigga simply brushed them away to chat about a happy memory of when he had been a child in Hokkaido, featuring the old lady who seemed more real as she described her.

“Was she the one who’d been ill?” Thor asked, shifting just enough that he could brush against Loki underneath the table.

“Yes,” Frigga said, “So it was expected.” She sighed, smiling at Loki, “It does make me nostalgic, thinking about Hokkaido. I don’t quite miss how cold it could get, but at the same time the snow could be beautiful.”

Loki thought of Jotenheim. Snow drifts with steam from hot springs came to mind, though at the same time he felt certain that those icy mountains were not the ones he had seen in his brief visits to Jotenheim. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have long to ruminate.

Odin huffed, a sound Loki remembered and it didn’t matter where from. The anger had been there in both sets of memories. From the corner of his eye he saw Thor tense, his shoulders squaring as though preparing for battle. Frigga closed her eyes briefly, as though surrendering to the inevitable.

“What?” Thor snapped. He too had a temper, though Loki had rarely found it directed at him, unlike Odin’s. Thor channeled his ability to anger towards productivity, whether it was on the training grounds or in the studio. It was a part of him, made of lighting and thunder, natural and fierce but without malice. A flash of raw fury that burnt itself out to leave sunny skies and peaceful smiles. Loki also suspected that the last few days had heightened Thor’s emotions, fraying at his temper to make it susceptible to the slightest provocation, as though this was an argument that had been decades in the making just waiting for the perfect storm. Loki recognised too the way in which Odin drew himself up. He was no less imposing here, sat in normal Midgardian clothing in a dinning room with an almost empty plate before him.

“Always the same secretive glances and touches,” Odin snapped, a dam breaking, “As if it’s something hidden.”

Thor drew back sharply from Loki as if burnt.

“Loki,” Frigga said with forced cheer, “There’s this lovely artwork I need to show you _right this minute_.” Her tone left no room for argument, and she stood sharply, expecting Loki to follow her. Loki stood slowly, not sure what he should do, a part of him wanting to obey her and run as far as he could from the argument that was brewing, a part of him wanting to insert himself in between the pair and attempt to diffuse it even knowing that it was futile. He could remember vividly Thor and Odin yelling at each other. He could remember Odin banishing Thor, an unexpected punishment that had caused so many unintended consequences.

“You’ve never been happy about—” Thor started but Odin cut him off.

“You lied,” he snapped angrily, “For two years you went out of your way to hide your relationship. I’m your _father_ —”

Loki didn’t hear anything else clearly, the sound of raised voices muffled to make the words indistinct even if the hurt and anger built up over years of repression and miscommunication was still clear through the walls. Frigga leant against the closed door briefly, closing her eyes with an expression of abject misery on her face.

“You wanted to show me an artwork?” Loki said uncertainly, wanting to do anything that might lift that expression from her face even as a part of him desperately wanted to press his ear to the door and listen in to the drama. He had often listened to Thor and Odin arguing, often in front of him as he stood a silent and forgotten observer. Rarely had he been so integral to the argument. Even the times when he had been the cause he had mostly been the invisible manipulator behind the scenes.

“There’s nothing really,” Frigga admitted, “Just a ruse to get you away from the argument. That’s been far too many years in the making and Thor seems to be in the right mood to be riled up…” She moved to hug him, and he let himself revel in the sensation of the embrace. She felt somehow smaller and frailer than he remembered, as though the magic and crown she had borne on Asgard had given her physical stature beyond her actual body. He had missed her bitterly. 

She drew back, cupping his cheek with affection. “You know I love you dear. You don’t have to say what’s up, but if you want I’ll listen. Or I can distract you with general chitchat, I know you tend to keep things hidden. I’m just glad you share so much with Thor, even if he ends up taking some of whatever it is out on Odin.”

Loki smiled, grateful for her affection. He felt at peace, as though he had found some form of salvation. Frigga smiled back at him, the room feeling quiet and peaceful even as they both knew there was a war raging just next door. Frigga had always had the unique ability to make him feel like everything was alright, even if he could appreciate that maybe he wished she had spent more time being honest rather than reassuring him in the version of events that he could remember. Though here it was different, it was clear to him that she had never hidden the truth from him, that he had always understood that while they had no bond made of blood they had one that was unbreakable.

“Actually,” Frigga said, “I do know something that I ought to show you. It’s not quite finished and really it’s to be a gift so I should keep it secret but I think I’ll show it to you anyway. Just maybe don’t tell Thor, so it can be a surprise for him.”

She led him through the small flat to a small room with a large loom that dominated it.

“It’s going to be a blanket,” Frigga said, “Though it’s not finished yet.”

Loki stared. It didn’t have to be completed for him to know what the pattern was. It was so familiar that it burnt its way through his soul, even if he’d never seen it look like that before.

Yggdrasil spread out over the woven fabric. Not quite the Yggdrasil that Loki had learnt in the libraries of Asgard, memorising all the branches so he could slip between the realms with ease. It was closer to the stylised Yggdrasil that Thor had on his arm, the artwork that formed the framework of the band’s logo. And underneath it there was an extra dimension that Loki recognised, realising that he had overlooked something so important.

It was another version of Yggdrasil, as far as he was concerned. Or maybe an added dimension that suggested something beyond the flat assumption of the realms but that there could be infinite versions of each realm that too could be moved between, though with less ease than the branches he knew better than the back of his hand, in part because the branches stayed the same and he had often played about with shapeshifting so the back of his hand changed according to his whim.

Only at the same time it wasn’t. It was the map he had barely glanced at in the front few pages of the novels he himself had written, the map of the fantasy world he had created full of characters whose lives he had composed. Something that he had presumably pulled from the depths of his own creativity, crafted out of his own inspiration with help from the world tree that held the world together.

Now he saw it tangled together with Yggdrasil he felt like it was almost speaking to him, hints that he could almost understand. Some hidden meaning that now seemed almost clear, a pathway and a guide to travelling that existed through pure chance just for him, surely the only person alive that could understand it.

He could feel Frigga’s eyes on him, and he turned to her, thrusting from his mind the questions and theories that threatened to overtake him. “It’s beautiful,” he said, completely honestly. It was, a magical combination of Thor and him woven into one symbolic representation. He had vague memories of sitting by Frigga as she wove in her room amongst the golden spires of Asgard, and at the same time he had memories of sitting by her feet as she wove in simple flats, always watching the threads blending together to form fabrics with complex designs. Always feeling at peace as something came into existence before his eyes. 

“There’s still plenty more of it left to do before it’s ready to be given to you,” Frigga said, “But it’s coming together nicely so far.”

Loki reached out thoughtfully, as though to touch it, pausing minutely before allowing his fingers to rest delicately on the fabric. A work in progress that held a guide that sunk deep into his subconsciousness, whispering hints that he had already begun to feel, a key to a secret he didn’t know existed.

“Would you like to look at some old photo albums?” Frigga asked suddenly, disturbing his thoughts, “Thinking of Hokkaido made me feel nostalgic.”

“Alright,” Loki said, eager for the chance to sit beside her and review the life he felt like he was on the verge of remembering. Eager to simply be with her, alive and happy.

They sat together on the sofa of the living room, an old photo album between them. Frigga flicked through, giving her commentary and luckily not expecting Loki to remember much. It seemed familiar, both the fields of flowers and the deep snow drifts. Loki with his face pressed up against the glass of the snake enclosure of a zoo, clearly frustrated with the barrier keeping him from the snakes within. They were nothing like the quality that Thor had shown him on his phone, nothing like the sharp clarity of the modern era he remembered from his brief foray onto Midgard when he had failed to successfully subjugate humanity. But still beautiful, a gateway into another life that he had lived even if he couldn’t quite bring it into focus. It seemed more real than Asgard now that he was looking at his own face, childish and wrapped in warm wool, smiling up at the camera through time. He soaked in the pictures of him and Frigga together, even if there were less of them. Frigga had normally been the photographer, he gathered, eager to document the explorations of her curious young child.

Loki was laughing at a tale Frigga was telling, of how he had been fascinated with the horses that lived in the fields near where they lived, and had slowly but surely made friends with them despite her best efforts to prevent it, meaning that whenever he walked past they would all follow him along the fence hopeful of his attention, when the door opened with slightly more force than necessary. 

Thor winced slightly, the excess force accidental.

“We did the dishes,” he said gruffly.

“Thank you,” Frigga said, smiling, choosing to simply ignore everything else, standing gracefully and closing the photo album. Loki stood too, with more reluctance. He was sad to have his time with Frigga disturbed, just as he was glad to have Thor beside him once again.

Thor strode across the room, wrapping his arms around Loki and burying his face into his hair, inhaling deeply. “Sorry,” Loki heard him mutter, barely more than a whisper audible simply because it was so close to his ear. Loki patted his back gently, glimpsing over his shoulder Odin who also looked as though he had weathered a storm and was still rebuilding after the destruction. 

“We should be going,” Thor said, drawing back from the embrace but leaving his arm trailing about Loki’s waist.

“Don’t be strangers,” Odin commented sharply, his voice and expression unwelcoming but at the same time without malice. 

Thor nodded sharply, angry but also in complete agreement.

Loki hesitated, resisting Thor’s slight pull on his arm toward the doorway where their coats and shoes awaited them. There was one other thing he wanted, even if he felt a dreadful fear of it. He pushed it aside, remembering the final moments he had spent with Odin before his death, and stepped towards him. He had called him father for a long time, had longed for his good opinion and despaired of ever gaining it.

He hugged Odin.

Odin seemed to freeze in his arms, frailer and older than Loki ever remembered him being. Odin had always seemed eternal, more solid than Asgard, and then he had died and Asgard had been consumed in Sutur’s flames. Odin hugged him back, awkward but affectionate, as though it had been a long time in the making just like his disagreement with Thor. Two resolutions in one evening.

When he broke the embrace, it was with an awkward shuffling with neither of them quite sure what to do. Loki wasn’t sure if they had ever hugged before, certainly not regularly. He couldn’t quite remember when it was he had last hugged his father. Odin had not been one for cuddles, even before the barrier that had grown between them. Thor tugged as his arm, drawing him back towards him, a strong arm wrapping itself around Loki’s waist where it belonged. Possessive, as though Loki was Thor’s. Protective, as though Thor would defend him against the entire world. As though Thor needed him, needed his reassurance, needed his love, both in the promise of forever and in that moment.

They took their leave. Loki was selfishly glad that they had visited. He felt a peace at having seen the faces of his parents again, alive and well when all his memories had, for him at least, been tainted with bad feelings that had never been resolved properly before their deaths. Instead he had been able to at least find a degree of understanding with Odin, and even more importantly spent time sitting with Frigga in good humour. Even when she had visited him in the prisons of Asgard it had been a projection, a cunning circumvention of Odin’s rules. There had been none of the bitterness and resentment that had lingered under the surface then, just a strong bond between mother and child.

He knew that Thor had probably had less of a good evening, even if to an extent the idea of Thor and Odin butting heads was simply a part of the way family relationships had so often gone in his memory. The walk back lacked the cheerful chatter of the walk there, Thor in stormy silence but still Loki was cheerful. 

Loki recognised their building as they approached, knew it to be their home as they turned the corner and it came into view. They climbed the stairs to their own front door in silence, removing coats and shoes in silence, putting them away in silence. Then Thor moved, as Loki knew he would, a knowledge that felt like it was built on foundations that had not been forged on Asgard but in a mortal plane of existence. He wrapped his arms around Loki, pushing him against the wall in amongst their coats, kissing him deeply. Loki relaxed in amongst the forest of their outerwear, welcoming Thor’s tongue into his mouth as much as he welcomed Thor’s weight leaning against his body.

“Sorry,” Thor whispered into Loki’s neck, nuzzling and kissing with a gentle desperation. Loki stroked his fingers through his hair, reassuring and affectionate. “I hate that I inherited his temper,” Thor whispered, muffled by Loki’s skin but close enough to his ear that the words were unmistakable. He pulled back slightly so he could look Loki in the eyes, anger giving way to regret.

“Did you eat enough?” he asked, guilt tinging his tone for his part in disrupting dinner and causing Loki to leave the table before the meal was truly done, even if it had been close to over.

“Yes,” Loki reassured him, truthfully. “And I had a good time with mother.”

Thor sighed, kissing him again but achingly softly. Nothing more than opened lips kissing lightly again and again, so gentle it almost hurt. Loki let himself melt into it, looping his arms round Thor’s neck. Thor ran his hands down his sides, grasping firmly but tenderly at his hips and lifting. Loki wrapped his legs around Thor’s waist, burying his face into Thor’s neck. Thor sighed again, contented and at peace, the storm clouds lifting and revealing the sun, bathing Loki in its golden light.

For a moment they just stayed there, Thor hugging Loki to him, and then Thor carried him slowly but surely through the darkened rooms of their flat to the bedroom. He knew the way perfectly, pausing only to switch the bedroom light on so they could be bathed in its electric light, seeing each other clearly. Thor set him down on the bed, sitting next to him smoothly without ever breaking the embrace, holding him tenderly as though he was unbearably precious.

Loki wriggled back enough from the hug so that he could kiss Thor on the tip of his nose, before giving him a firm shove. Thor went down like a ton of bricks, laughing in surprised amusement as he ended up lying on his back on the bed. Loki curled up beside him, resting his head on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly. 

Thor turned to him, a heavy arm resting lightly across his body, a hand gently cradling his head. “Yeah,” he sighed, his breath warm against Loki’s skin. “I suppose that was an argument that needed to happen. I’m sorry it was tonight, but I’m glad you had a good time with Frigga anyway. She’s an amazing lady. Sometimes I wonder why she puts up with dad.” He paused slightly, before adding even more softly, “Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me.”

“Love?” Loki replied, holding him close enough that he could feel Thor smile, the movement of muscles brushing his beard against Loki’s cheek. He moved to rest his head on his hand rather than Thor’s shoulder so he could look down into blue eyes, brushing blond strands of hair out of the way.

Thor pulled him back down for a kiss, slowly mapping his mouth as his fingers tangled in his hair, careful to not pull it in the slightest. He shifted, wrapping their legs together, Loki’s head returning to rest against his shoulder. He was quiet for a long while. Loki was happy to lie there, doing nothing except being loved.

“She always did just let you do whatever you wanted,” Thor said softly, “I guess she knew too well that you’d do whatever you wanted to anyway, so it was just easier to find a way of dealing with it than fighting a losing battle.” Loki laughed slightly at that, and Thor smiled affectionately at him. “I don’t think she was too happy about you moving out to live with me straight away, but she supported us anyway. I don’t think she thought it was very sensible and we weren’t entirely thinking with our heads.”

“I guess we were thinking with our hearts instead,” Loki said, snuggling closer, enjoying hearing Thor speak nostalgically about things he half-remembered, like a forgotten dream that was being reawakened.

Thor snorted slightly, kissing him on the cheek. “Yeah…” he said, “I think she thought we were thinking with our dicks and she may have had a point, but we were also very much in love and it did work out fine. Just means, independent as you are, you’ve never lived alone.”

That didn’t sound all that bad to Loki, really. He had always valued his space and his independence but neither were things Thor encroached upon, but at the same time he disliked enforced solitude. He remembered the hours alone in the prisons of Asgard with misery, though that was in part due to the act of being caged.

“Well,” Thor laughed, “We were young and you have always been breathtakingly gorgeous and I don’t think I’ve suffered permanent brain damage from all my blood heading south back then.”

Loki pressed himself closer to Thor, nuzzling his beard and enjoying the scratch of it against his skin. It had always just been a feature of Thor, part of the preferred aesthetic of Asgard that Loki both shunned and envied at the same time rather than a means to conduct the electricity that seemed to run from Thor all the way through his body, setting him alight. 

“I’m older and wiser now,” Thor continued, trailing ghostly kisses all over Loki’s face, a hand stroking its way down to cup and massage Loki’s ass, “No longer a slave to my baser instincts and desires.”

“I can tell,” Loki said with a smile, biting gently at Thor’s throat, eliciting a low groan. 

Thor gripped him harder, rocking his hips to bump a hardening cock against Loki’s thigh. Loki would have nibbled more, but Thor pulled him to him, kissing him fiercely, full of lightning and love as thunder rumbled with the thudding of his heart. Loki wanted the skies above them to crack open with a rising storm and set the sky alight while he was there, safely wrapped up in the eye of it protected by Thor from the forces that ran through his veins, overpowering the blood in them. In this world without magic he was content to be comfortably coddled, allowing Thor’s deep kisses to force from his mind all the lingering thoughts of maps that led to answers to questions he wished to forget. Rather he let himself map Thor’s body with hands that slipped under his T-shirt to run along firm planes of muscle, playing with the waistband of his jeans.

“I love you,” Thor whispered reverently, holding him close, “I love you I love you I love you.”

“I love you too,” Loki murmured into his chest, somewhat shy but also feeling utterly smothered in love in the best way. 

Thor returned to kissing him softly again, as though attempting to draw each and every touch out for all of eternity. Loki was content to let him, making his own touches slower and slower, soaking up every point of contact. With a confident show of strength, as though he knew it would only turn Loki on more, Thor rolled onto his back, pulling Loki on top of him. Loki braced himself against Thor’s chest, lying entirely on him rather than the bed, gazing down into his eyes and understanding how he could have written so many verses about that shade of blue. 

“It’s probably just as well I don’t tend to write love songs,” Thor said, gently pushing Loki’s hair back from falling over both their faces, “As I don’t think there’s any lyric that could possibly do justice to how beautiful you are.”

“It’s probably just as well I write about political intrigue and assassination plots as it saves me from having to murder you in your sleep,” Loki shot back, in many ways a completely inappropriate response but Thor just threw his head back against the pillows and laughed, the vibrations running through his body and into Loki, filling him with warmth and increasing the growing need for more than just chaste kisses and longing touches. He hadn’t realised quite until that moment what it was he wrote about, but now he remembered them, remembered his characters and their stories as though they were almost real, a whole cast of people that he carried through his daily life living alongside him.

Loki leant down to kiss him, pouring out all of the fierce passion he felt into the action. Thor returned it because Thor never backed down from anything. Thor never surrendered, even when Loki advised him to listen to common sense so that they could live to fight another day. Thor was strength without a limit, the raging storm that swept everything else up in its wild power and Loki was desperate to be swept away. To no longer be distracted by the haunting memories of Asgard fractured by the memories of mundanity that crept in through every crack.

“How do you want me?” he whispered to Thor, his lips close enough that the shape of the words were traced onto his skin, his clever words written down. 

Thor shuddered, gazing hopelessly and helplessly at him, as though he had been asked to make an impossible choice. “Closer?” he said faintly, his hands slipping under Loki’s shirt to stroke the bare skin of his back. 

Loki smiled.

Carefully, as though unwrapping a breakable gift, Thor peeled the shirt off him, sighing and kissing at Loki’s revealed collarbone as though it wasn’t a sight he hadn’t seen millions of times before. As though it was Valhalla or the Promised Land, Loki didn’t wish to think too hard about the conflict of the cultural backgrounds that lived inside his head. Just the existence of Thor under him holding him close was more than enough.

With a combination of reluctance and impatience, Thor rolled over enough to dislodge Loki, reluctance at allowing even the smallest distance to come between them warring with the impatience of being too clothed and needing the space to wriggle out of their clothing that had erected far too much of a barrier between them.

Loki pushed Thor back down, liking the way he sank into the bed, framed by cartoon mice going about their mischief. He liked having Thor spread out before him like a buffet where he could eat his fill. He liked the way Thor melted under his touch, accepting Loki leaving his arms as the price to pay to have Loki moving over him, running his fingers up and down his body. Adoration and complete trust gazed up at him from an open expression, Thor having no reason to mistrust him or hide the depth of his love.

He ran his fingers lightly along Thor’s cock, hard and hot just like Thor was made of burning heat and firm muscle, tracing over his balls to the crack of his ass. Thor spread his legs more, whispering, “Please,” softly. Loki sat back on his haunches, doing nothing to hide the fact that he was enjoying the way Thor squirmed, all his powerful muscles tensing in restraint, wanting Loki all over him. Needy and desperate.

Loki dribbled lube onto Thor’s cock, appreciating the shiver from sudden coldness of it against the unbearable warmth of his flesh as well as taut anticipation. Thor let him take his time, fists clenching in the duvet in accompaniment to soft moans until Loki too was impatient and unwilling to extend his toying any longer, straddling Thor confidently with a hand braced against Thor’s chest. It was as solid and stable as anything else he could have used to help with his balance, Thor’s heart thudding under his palm.

Thor’s hands went to grip his hips, gentle but firm, knowing exactly how to ease Loki down, sighing the whole time. He rolled his hips gently, seeking and finding the right angle as Loki wished his nails were long enough to leave harder scratches across Thor’s chest. Thor gazed up at him, endless strength and power dedicated to Loki’s pleasure, as though he could never tire from seeing Loki’s face. As though it was the most beautiful sight in the entire world.

“Not bad,” Loki said, cheeks flushed and voice husky, knowing that it would just make Thor laugh, vibrations running all the way up through Loki to short-circuit his brain. Thor didn’t need to command electricity for that, stomach muscles rippling with amusement at the same time as they ripped with the force of moving inside Loki, as though he was so used to Loki and his sharp tongue he knew a compliment when it was given no matter the form it was wrapped in.

“I have some talents,” Thor said, the roll of his hips changing to thrusts coordinated with his firm grip on Loki’s hips, capable of moving him and bearing his weight. Loki was happy to let him, wrapping his hand around his cock as the pleasure built. He reached for the box of tissues, common sense and his natural fastidiousness seeing the appeal in avoiding unnecessary mess. 

Thor batted the box from his hands. They shared a look. Thor had learnt his lesson from the time when he had expressed a similar sentiment by flinging the box across the room, which had been quite erotic at the time but when the cum had been pooling in his belly button and running along the sharp ravines of his muscles they had both looked across the room to the distant box of tissues with a degree of regret. Loki hadn’t had the heart to be angry as Thor had looked so endearingly guilty, fully aware that he hadn’t thought it through that Loki had spent a long time kissing him and laughing. Loki left the tissues for later and came across Thor’s stomach, which made Thor groan loudly, tipped over the edge himself. He continued to moan softly, twitching slightly under Loki and still holding them close together.

Loki moved his hands to Thor’s, pushing gently at them to no avail. “No…” Thor whined petulantly. Loki tapped his hands again, and Thor sighed a sad, “Kay…” as he let Loki move enough that they could come apart. He wrapped his arms around Loki, drawing him down into a hug getting the cum on his chest on Loki as well, pillowing Loki’s head with his bicep. Loki cuddled into him at the same time as he grunted in mild irritation at having cum smeared on him as well. He had never liked being dirty, which was a part of the reason why Thor had always said he was probably part cat. After all, they didn’t know his biological parents so as far as Thor was concerned if anyone was some magical cat boy like in that anime Fandral had loved, then it was Loki.

“Sorry,” Thor said without any regrets, “I’ll clean you.” He licked at Loki’s chest, looking up to meet his eyes as he did so. Loki rolled his eyes but laughed as he did so. “I read somewhere that semen is good for depression,” Thor informed him seriously, not caring that he’d got some in his beard. 

Loki buried his fingers in Thor’s hair, sighing affectionately. “Isn’t that in the same way that I vaguely remember you can technically get HIV from saliva but only if you drink litres of it, so it isn’t transferable by kissing?” he said, “A mental image that does slightly put me off ever kissing again thanks to the association with drinking vats of saliva because ew.”

“Shhh,” Thor said firmly, “Don’t spoil my fun by being clever.” 

He licked a bit more before curling up further around Loki sighing in a relaxed manner as though he was on the verge of sinking into sleep.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep,” Loki said. He recognised that position and the heaviness of Thor’s breathing. Thor hummed, nodding and snuggling closer to Loki, which was not the reassurance Loki wanted. He wanted to be clean and to sleep under the covers, not exposed and liable to wake up genuinely stuck to Thor with his own cum. He poked Thor, who stretched, reaching for the tissues reluctantly.

They washed and dressed in pyjamas, brushing their teeth together though Loki knew it would have been a much quicker process had Thor spent less time hugging him close and kissing any exposed flesh that caught his eye. Thor had a good eye for noticing when there was an opportunity for a kiss, and like the hunter he had been on Asgard he moved in for the kill without any warning.

Thor held him close as they lay under the covers, heavy breathing swiftly changing to gentle snores that Loki found to be the perfect background noise for sleeping. Soft rumbling like a distant thunderstorm, wild and powerful but no threat to him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 contains hummus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got back home to find my window broken so hopefully this day is a more pleasant one for you to read.

Loki woke as he did every morning, pleasantly drifting into consciousness to a steaming cup of tea. No one made tea quite like Thor. No one else managed to add the all important ingredient of love. He lay in bed, looking at nothing, thinking over the memories in his mind, aware that Thor was watching him. He turned into the embrace he knew was awaiting him. Thor kissed his forehead softly, letting Loki use him as a pillow.

“I think I’m starting to remember everything,” Loki said softly.

“Good,” Thor said, stroking comfortingly through his hair.

He sat up, climbing from the bed with Thor following him. Thor dressed quickly with little thought while Loki stood before his clothes thinking. Planning. Considering. He looked across to Thor, noting the concerned frown on his face and the rainbow unicorn on his T-shirt.

“I’m fine,” Loki said breezily, “Go have breakfast I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Thor pursed his lips but did so. Loki smiled. He didn’t want Thor to watch him dress, wanted to do so alone so he could surprise him. He ignored all his trousers and shirts to focus on his dresses. He knew which one he wanted. Carefully he withdrew it, a dark green that really brought out his eyes and made Thor wax lyrical about his beauty as if Thor needed a reason to do so. Thor thought he was the most beautiful person on the planet whatever he wore and whatever he looked like. Luckily Loki had a good sense of what actually flattered him as Thor was useless as a second opinion.

The sleeves were long and the neck was high enough to just cover his collarbone. It fitted him well and he could remember Thor struggling to keep his hands to himself, barely paying any attention to the viking ships they were supposedly at the museum to see. It had been a long time since he’d last worn it, but it still fit perfectly. Even if it hadn’t, he knew it wouldn’t matter. He could shave his head, gain 30kg and wear a literal sack and still Thor would think him beautiful.

He dithered momentarily, unsure if he should pin his hair up. It looked elegant up, but while that drew Thor’s attention to his neck even more than normal it also meant that Thor ran his hands through his hair less, unwilling to mess up the hair style Loki had chosen. As a compromise he twisted it into the simplest of styles, held in place with a hair clip that he could remove easily. 

He picked up a pair of sheer black tights, considering them. They were perfectly sensible, would look sexy and elegant, but he didn’t want to wear tights. He wanted something lacier, to match his underwear, selecting instead stockings and suspenders, hidden by the hem of his dress. 

He hesitated, then rummaged quickly through the bottom of their shared wardrobe for Thor’s rarely worn slippers. The perfect accompaniment to the outfit. They were large, fluffy and sparkly unicorns with horns. It had taken Loki a certain amount of determined searching to find them in a size that would fit Thor’s large feet, given that the assumed demographic by the unimaginative shops was teenage girls rather than grown men, but he had succeeded as he was Loki and Loki got what he wanted. Thor had been delighted, even though his feet rarely got cold enough to warrant slippers.

Loki, by comparison, wore slippers throughout the winter though his were not unicorns, as his feet did get cold. There had been a few occasions where he had opted to use Thor’s body heat rather than slippers, though. Slippers didn’t moan and curse quite so deliciously. So if Thor was sitting on the sofa watching TV or reading, it was hard to resist the temptation to climb up to sit on the back of the sofa behind him, his legs over Thor’s shoulders and his fingers with easy access to play with Thor’s hair. From there, it was quite easy to poke his cold toes down the front of Thor’s trousers to where Thor was always very warm. The first time he had done it, Thor had been blindsided, torn between cursing at the horrific sensation of Loki’s ice-cold toes on his balls and the more pleasant sensation of Loki’s toes stroking him. Now whenever Loki sat behind him on the sofa in winter he could feel Thor tense in anticipation, knowing what was likely to come next but not doing anything more than calling Loki a demon.

He slunk into the kitchen, where Thor was eating his way through his usual breakfast. The sight made Loki feel warm inside, especially when Thor looked him up and down in open appreciation. It didn’t matter that Thor had that reaction whatever he chose to wear, it still buoyed him onwards. It also suggested that Thor was relaxed again, no longer caught up in his worries over Loki or the bad temper of his argument with Odin, the darkness chased away by the golden sunshine that sometimes seemed to radiate from within him. Loki sauntered casually across the floor, smiling as Thor’s lips twitched into an amused smile at his choice of footwear, pushing the nearly finished bowl of muesli out of his way. He perched in its place, leaning down to kiss Thor who tasted unsurprisingly of fruit and nuts.

“I like that dress,” Thor said, giving his dismissed muesli only the briefest of glances before allowing his focus to rest entirely on Loki. Loki smiled, wriggling slightly in delight at the compliment, and then stood back up, returning the muesli to its original place.

Thor caught him around the waist, pulling him down onto his lap and Loki went willingly, happy to be in his embrace even if he had to listen to Thor chewing right by his ear. Thor offered him a spoonful, which he accepted gracefully. He didn’t dislike muesli, he just had no desire to eat breakfast.

“Mmmmm Loki and food, have I died and gone to Heaven?” Thor asked as he finished his breakfast. Loki knew he meant it as a joke or a compliment, just their usual banter, but he couldn’t help but flinch at the idea of Thor dying. There were too many memories there, even if Thor hadn’t actually died. It had always been Loki, and mostly he hadn’t actually died himself. He could still remember the fear though, the sense that against Thanos they were helpless. He stood abruptly, pulling away and using the empty bowl as an easy excuse to take it to the sink.

Thor followed him, as he could easily have predicted, catching him again by the sink to wrap his arms around him, pressing them close. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into Loki’s ear, warm breath comforting as the familiar scratch of his beard tickled Loki’s neck. Loki relaxed in his arms, deciding that the bowl could be washed up later, probably by Thor. He reached up behind him, to stroke Thor’s hair.

“Is there anything you want to do today?” Thor asked, “We could go out for a walk around the park, or visit some museums on a date? If you think it would be helpful we could go to the studio and maybe meet up with the rest of Yggdrasil, seeing as visiting dad and Frigga last night seemed to help.” He paused then added, “You know, if we ignore the argument, but I probably won’t argue with Yggdrasil. I hope. I mean, that would just be rotten luck.”

Loki laughed. He rested his head back against Thor’s shoulder with a contented sigh. “Dressed like this?” he asked, uncertainly. 

Thor nodded. “If you want to,” he said, “You have before. You’re just you.”

“I think…” Loki said slowly, turning so that he could face Thor to bury his face in his chest, “That I would like to walk around the park with you. And I do want to go to the studio and meet the rest of Yggdrasil. But I agree: if possible can we have no arguments?”

“I’ll try my best,” Thor mumbled, muttering softly into Loki’s hair, “I don’t normally argue with anyone you know, this is a dreadful smear on my character…” Loki poked him in the stomach, getting a disgruntled whine from Thor. He could see that, that Thor might be as big and strong as the mightiest of warriors but he had no need for violence in this life, no need to be anything other than the soft-hearted fool Loki felt an unholy desire to protect.

“We could go to that nice place that does hummus,” Thor continued, chattering cheerfully as they put on their coats. 

Loki tilted his head to look at him, a wordless question. 

“Hummus,” Thor repeated, before breaking out into a big smile. “Am I about to witness you experiencing hummus for the first time again? Because you like hummus. You once said that you’d sell all of my organs on the black market for a life-time supply of hummus. I think you were joking, but I get the sentiment.”

“Is it that good?” Loki asked in surprised. 

Thor shrugged, “I mean, I wouldn’t go that far myself but yeah I guess.” He watched as Loki pulled on a pair of boots that suited the sheer gloss of his stockings, his eyes trailing up Loki’s legs and body until they reached his face.

The weather was sunny, shining down on them as Loki wrapped his hand around Thor’s bicep. The route felt familiar, even as he let Thor lead them as they walked along the road. All around them were other people, going about their daily lives, utterly uninterested in Thor and Loki. Loki felt no desire for their attention or their good opinions, as he once might have done. He had Thor beside him, humming absentmindedly as though there was a melody he had caught in his head. Loki recognised it from the tune he had strummed on the guitar the day before, realised it to be presumably a song Thor was working on. That was the way things often were, 

They wandered around the park in amongst the trees and along the canals carved out of the ground. “A few years back it was really cold in the winter, and the water froze,” Thor said, “And you went skating. You’re so graceful on the ice.”

Loki considered the water. Currently it had ducks swimming in it, quacking happily. “Did you skate too?” he asked.

“Yes, but I fell over and you laughed at me,” Thor said, giving Loki a look that might have been hurt if he hadn’t also been smiling. 

Loki laughed and Thor squeezed him tightly to him.

After a lengthy gap of comfortable silence, soaking in the sounds of nature, Loki said, “I’m glad you like this dress.” He remembered Thor’s story of Sif seeing them and being mistaken when he had worn it before, years ago. There had been a secretive quantity to it on Asgard at times, something elicit that seemed alright because he could shift into any shape for all manner of mischief, not simply walking out arm in arm with Thor in a beautiful gown because he felt like it. 

“I like everything about you,” Thor answered earnestly, “You’re stubborn, selfish, erratic and prone to ignoring everything just to write your stories when inspiration takes you, but I love you so much.”

“I’m not a bad person,” Loki said, sniffing indignantly even though Thor’s casual acknowledgement of his flaws spoke more of affection than any actual criticism, “I didn’t shove you in the water for saying that, I demand credit for that.”

Thor laughed, glancing quickly round the quiet grove they were wandering thorough before pulling Loki into a deep kiss. “Alternatively,” Thor suggested as he drew back, his hand still on the small of Loki’s back, “We could just forget about lunch, other people, all that, and we can go back home because I remember that dress looking damn good on the floor too.”

“I want hummus,” Loki pouted, smiling and leaning his head against Thor’s shoulder so they could continue walking. It wasn’t a serious suggestion, but it made him feel warm inside to be desired. To have what to some might be oddities taken as attractive attributes. Thor’s hand slipped down to cup his ass briefly as they walked onwards, his face a picture of pure innocence.

The paths amongst the trees were nothing like the forests of Asgard. Here even amongst the peace there was a sense of being in amongst the city, whereas the golden spires of Asgard had been surrounded by forest. Those forests would end abruptly with the end of the world, ground dropping away to empty space. These ended with flower gardens and gates back out to the city, playgrounds for children interspersed in a way that they never had been anywhere in Asgard. Children there learnt to play on the training grounds, play fighting before they graduated to true battle. He remembered that vaguely even as he remembered swinging on the swings as a child and then as a teenager slinking out in the evening to hang around looking disreputable in playgrounds as the light dimmed.

The paths led to a café, which could have been reached more directly but that wasn’t the point. The point was to have a pleasant morning walk, and a part of Loki was sad that it was over. The café had large windows, looking out over the lake that spread out before them. They sat in the window, neither fully paying attention to the beautiful view they could be gazing out at. Thor had seen it plenty of times before in all manner of different weathers. He had seen Loki plenty of times before, in all kinds of different outfits and lighting, but still his eyes naturally found their way there. Loki knew that he should be looking about him with interest, noting the ways in which so much of it felt familiar, old memories waking up like the snowdrops poking their heads up above the snow to signal spring. He was captivated by Thor instead, their feet touching deliberately under the table as Thor made his suggestions about what they should order. Loki was happy to leave it to him to decide.

He was very aware of Thor’s eyes on him as he took his first mouthful of hummus spread on pitta bread. It was as good as Thor had promised he would find it. It was familiar, and Loki could feel the echoes of past dates sitting there in the big window ignoring the lake in favour of gazing into Thor’s blue eyes. A far nicer blue than that of lake water. He swallowed down on a wave of nostalgia and affection, sampling everything else that Thor had ordered simply because Loki liked it. Thor clearly liked everything judging by the way in which he was ravenously devouring it, even as he did his best to ensure that Loki managed to eat enough too.

Thor paid, because he was the one with a wallet. “I don’t even know where your wallet is, to be honest,” he admitted as they left.

“It’s buried under your boxers,” Loki told him off-handedly, remembering quite clearly even though until that moment it hadn’t even occurred to him that he had had a wallet. Magic had always meant the need to carry things in the normal manner was a problem for other people, as he had pockets of reality for storing anything he he might wish to store for later use. That and the fact that he could charm people into believing that they had accepted money when in reality he had handed them leaves. He had, after all, been the god of mischief. 

Thor stopped in his tracks, staring at Loki in baffled confusion. “Dare I ask why?”

“I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.” Loki shrugged. He remembered that train of thought now, remembered that there had been a few occasions since he had started keeping it there that he had had to carefully remove it when Thor was in another room so the hiding place wasn’t revealed.

“Of course,” Thor said with a sigh that suggested he was used to such antics, “I don’t know why I bothered asking…”

They could have taken the bus to the studio, but it wasn’t that far to walk and Loki was enjoying the prospect of stretching his legs. His memories involved being cooped up, first limited to an extent by his masquerade on Asgard, trapped in a gilded cage on Sakaar and then finally one of the survivors of Ragnarok aboard a spaceship. From there he had woken to a flat that was cozy, a home that he loved, but still he liked to sense of freedom of being under the sun. The sun that shone down on him and Thor, warm and gentle. Besides, he knew Thor well enough to know that just like an adequate amount of food and cuddling, Thor needed to move about. He might not attend training grounds to hone his skills as a warrior, instead focusing on lifting his weights, but striding out with Loki through parks and along streets was a part of his nature.

It wasn’t very big, as studios went, though the fact that Loki knew that when they approached made him aware that he was remembering his life more and more. There were no such things as studios on Asgard after all. It was familiar, though. Somewhere he had been before. Visiting Thor and the others who he could almost believe were really his friends too. Poking around listening to demos. Joining in with a chaotic discussion about potential rhymes that had ended with him getting a writing credit on one of the songs a few albums back.

Thor walked confidently through the entrance, knowing exactly where he was going, but still keeping his pace slow enough that Loki had time to carefully consider the surrounding, his arm still wrapped around Loki’s waist. He’d texted ahead while at lunch so Loki was both excited at the prospect of meeting friends and nervous. He remembered Hogun from the other day, going out of his way just to bring Loki the pickles he liked. He remembered Sif being angry on his behalf and willing to go as far as breaking up the band she loved because he mattered to her as a person not just an accessory that came with Thor to be dropped whenever Thor lost interest. He remembered the sense that they were warriors who looked down upon him because he used his wits and tricks, magic rather than brute force, that they allowed him to tag along out of pity rather than true care.

He dawdled in the corridor, his steps growing slower. Thor sensed his discomfort, stopping to pause, leaning against the wall and holding Loki in a comforting hug. “We can just go home if you want to?” he said, though Loki could tell that he didn’t want to. He stroked through Loki’s hair, nuzzling slightly at him cheek.

“No,” Loki said decisively.

“You look beautiful,” Thor continued, rubbing circles on his back, “And they all love you. Differently from the way I love you of course, but it’s still love. They’re worried in their own little way. And Volstagg brought cake.”

“Glutton,” Loki said without malice, “If you eat as much cake as him you’ll get as fat as him.”

“You’ll still love me,” Thor shrugged without the slightest bit of concern, not even denying Loki’s assessment that he was keen to have some of Hildegund’s cake. Loki felt a warm shiver run through him at Thor’s complete confidence in Loki’s affection. “Besides,” he continued with an almost teasing smile, “I also enjoy working out both because it’s calming and also because I know it turns you on.”

Loki blushed slightly. He pushed all worries and concerns from his mind, leaning forward to kiss Thor. Kissing Thor helped clear his mind of all other thoughts, calming him and filling him with nothing but love. There was a part of him that felt afraid to do so, even though the corridor was empty and they would hear anyone coming. There was a part of him, growing quieter and more distant, that remembered Thor as his brother and knew that they couldn’t be caught kissing. The Thor from those faded memories wouldn’t be kissing him, though. Yet even as he thought that he thought of the way Thor had always focused on his as though the universe revolved around his whims. The way that Thor had gripped him by the neck, close and intimate with just enough distance to excuse it. The broken desperation whenever Thor believed him dead, the betrayed relief when it proved to be nothing but a trick.

Thor drew back, a hand tracing languidly down Loki’s jaw, drinking in the sight of him. Loki had always had admirers, had always known he could draw eyes and break hearts with ease. Under Thor’s gaze he felt beautiful in a way he never quite had before, as though it was all of him that was seen not just the pretty façade or flattering styles he chose to present himself with but everything hidden within. The bad and the good. 

“I’m wearing lacy underwear,” he said suddenly, a secret hidden by the dress that now he wanted to share even though he rarely shared secrets. This was one that he wanted to share, wanted Thor to know. He caught the slight hitch in Thor’s breath. Smiling, knowing that no matter where he was or what was real he enjoyed teasing and there was no one better to tease than Thor, he lifted the hem of his dress just enough to reveal the laced tops of his stockings, bare thigh framing the suspenders that held them in place.

Thor swallowed as Loki dropped the hem back in place, smoothing in down as he felt Thor’s eyes remain on the briefly revealed skin now hidden once more. “If I promise to be quiet…” Thor started, half joking half serious.

“You’re never quiet,” Loki cut him off with a laugh. He kissed Thor again, quickly and impulsively, before pulling away with a smile. “Don’t want Yggdrasil to eat all the cake,” he said breezily, “Or to keep them waiting.” 

He knew without really knowing which was the right door. Thor trailed after him, muttering, “They already know you’re a tease and that I’m besotted…”

“But it _wasn’t_ an eel,” Fandral concluded as they opened the door. Volstagg was laughing over a slice of cake that it didn’t take a genius to guess wasn’t his first, brushing crumbs out of his beard. Hogun had his face in his hands, as though attempting to block out reality.

Sif was the first to notice them, jumping up from where she was lounging on the casual sofa with her guitar. She thrust the guitar into Thor’s hands and wrapped Loki up in a delighted hug as though she was pleased to see him. Tentatively, Loki hugged her back. It felt strange, as though it was perfectly normal even as a faint part of him thought that they surely had never hugged before but that was the memory of some ghosts on Asgard. He patted her back slightly, uncertain but feeling like that was where he belonged. It wasn’t the same as the way he felt in Thor’s arms or the way it felt to hug Frigga. It felt like having a friend who cared about him.

When she released him with a friendly smile Loki was slightly reluctant to let go. She took her guitar back from Thor, as though she saw him regularly enough to not consider him worthy of a hug but rather just a useful guitar stand. Fandral beamed at them, warm welcome on his handsome face. Loki didn’t want to ask for the context of his story. Hogun gave an understated nod as Volstagg stood to offer them the cake on the table.

Loki was happy to curl up on the sofa in amongst the various instruments he couldn’t play and the mixing machines he had never understood the workings of, nibbling on the blueberry cake as the band chattered, playing sections of music that he knew would sound better when it all came together rather than brief experiments that more often than not ended abruptly with laughter to segue into further discussions. He recognised the fragments of the melody Thor had been humming and strumming on his guitar, being pieced together into more than phrases when combined with the input of the others. He wasn’t being ignored, cut out of the conversation as he remembered feeling in the life that seemed more distant as he remembered more of the life he was living. He was there, welcome even if he wasn’t a member of the band and his talents lay elsewhere. He still felt at home as though he was amongst friends.

He could remember spending plenty of days in a similar position, sometimes with notebooks in front of him, sometimes with his laptop on his lap, writing away at stories that felt like they unfolded in front of his eyes. Sometimes he needed solitude and would shoo Thor away to prevent distractions. Sometimes he needed company, and was aware that left to his own devices he didn’t make much effort to socialise.

The door to the room opened again, and the Valkyrie wandered in yawning. She was dressed in what were clearly pyjamas, her slightly greasy hair in a messy pony tail. Loki got the impression that she had probably just woken up.

“Sif, do you have my toothbrush?” she asked sleepily, scratching at her head absentmindedly.

Sif wordlessly produced a toothbrush for her, handing it over with no comment. 

The Valkyrie nodded vaguely at the rest of the room, pausing to frown with sleepy concentration at Loki. “Loki,” she said after a moment, as though her brain was taking longer to come online than maybe it should be. She flopped down on the sofa beside him, offering a friendly fist bump that Loki found he reacted to without even thinking it through himself, a shared unspoken gesture of friends that came naturally. She shoved a slice of cake in her mouth without bothering to ask if it was alright, not that Volstagg would have objected, and promptly fell asleep, toothbrush held loosely in her hand.

Sif shrugged, as though she was used to it. The band returned to playing, which didn’t seem to disturb the Valkyrie’s sleep. Brunnhilde could sleep though pretty much anything and tended to keep odd hours. They had a fair bit in common, so they got on in their own way. That thought drifted through Loki’s mind as Fandral helpfully caught the toothbrush falling from her hand and returned it to Sif for safekeeping. Volstagg, rising from his drum kit to get another slice of cake as they switched from jamming to discussing again, thoughtfully covered her with a blanket. It was her blanket, left lying around like her toothbrush and other items. 

Thor carefully moved Brunnhilde’s leg so that he could sit down by Loki. She surfaced briefly, blinking at him as though trying to place him, before simply falling asleep again. Thor kissed him lightly on the cheek, a move that Loki suspected was so natural that he hadn’t actually necessarily intended to do it.

“I need to go soon,” Fandral said, glancing at his phone to check the time at the same time as his messages, “I have a—”

“A date?” Thor cut in, interrupting him with a light-hearted tease.

“As if, why would anyone date Fandral?” Sif said with a laugh that held no malice.

“Harsh,” Fandral said, giving her a look that wasn’t particularly offended.

“We all have our talents,” Hogun said serenely, “Just as we all have our weaknesses.” It had the aura of being profound, but Loki suspected that his intent was more a reference to an in-joke than anything else. He also felt, with absolute certainty, that he was included in them rather than excluded as he remembered feeling elsewhere. Those feelings felt less real now, as though they were drifting back to the universe they belonged in, across the mysterious dimensions of Yggdrasil. As though what was of Asgard was returning there, leaving him as his own personal variety of Loki. 

“Like Thor being next to useless in contract negotiations?” Loki added, unaware of that fact himself until he began speaking, the words bring back the memories. 

Thor gave him a betrayed look, flushing pink.

“Partly your fault,” Sif laughed affectionately as Thor just blushed more, looking down with an embarrassed smile. Loki could clearly remember taking pictures of himself in varying states of undress, posed sensually, to send Thor at the most inopportune moments. He also knew that no matter how many times he had done so, Thor would still eagerly open the pictures he sent and find himself somewhat distracted from whatever it was he was supposed to be concentrating on. 

Loki shifted slightly, just enough that his dress rose up his thigh so that the lace tops of his stockings were almost revealed. He kept his gaze on the rest of Yggdrasil as he heard Thor inhale slowly, knowing exactly what Thor was looking at.

“Probably about time to call it a day,” Volstagg said, “I need to pick up the kids.” He looked at the almost empty cake tin. “Anyone want the last bit of cake?”

“I do!” Loki and Fandral said at the same time, sharing a grin. Volstagg sighed slightly in disappointment, allowing Fandral to grab a part of the remaining slice.

“Sorry to love you and leave you!” Fandral said, flicking his scarf elegantly across his shoulders, looking every bit the dashing gentleman Loki knew him to be. He exited, cake in hand.

Loki leant forward, breaking off a piece and gesturing to Volstagg to eat what he had left, breaking his own piece in two. He gave one to Thor, not minding that he was dropping crumbs everywhere. He brushed them off him and Thor, ensuring that he remained elegant and that he got a chance to casually run his fingers down Thor. The crumbs ended up on the sofa and the floor, but given the general state of the room it didn’t make much difference. It was cleaned every now and then, in a group effort with a general intention to keep the place tidier. It never lasted longer than a week.

Thor stood as Volstagg left, cake tin in hand, moving to also put on his coat. Loki waved goodbye to Hogun, before going to one of the drawers. He remembered that there were paper party hats in it, for some reason that hadn’t even made sense at the time. He pulled one out and placed it on Brunnhilde’s head. She continued sleeping without noticing. Sif sniggered, drawing her phone and taking a picture as Loki smirked in the background.

“See you,” Thor said casually to Sif as he wrapped his arm around Loki. She gave him a wave, slouching down on the sofa beside Brunnhilde as though she intended to stay longer, possibly until Brunnhilde returned to the world of consciousness.

The walk back to their flat was pleasant. Thor took every moment they had to stop to cross the road as an opportunity to kiss Loki on the neck, just behind his ear where there was a gap between his hair and his scarf. Loki found that he remembered more and more of his life, that the memories were sprouting back into being with a fierce vivacity. He still remembered Asgard, it still felt so real to him, but at the same time it seemed more distant. Like it had happened to someone else. He had been that person for a while and now he wasn’t so sure.

“Is there anything in particular you want for dinner?” Thor asked as he locked the heavy door to their flat.

Loki spun round, dancing down the corridor as he dropped his coat casually on the floor, full of delighted joy in being alive. “Hummus!” he said, twirling again so that his skirt flew up enough to give Thor a glance of the lacy tops of his stockings, loving the sensation of the fabric swirling around his thighs.

“We don’t have any hummus,” Thor said patiently, hanging up Loki’s coat. “Do you want to go to the shops to get some? We did just have it for lunch, but if you want it again…”

Loki bounded back down the corridor towards him, stopping to stand right in front of him, their noses almost touching. For a moment Thor thought that they would be putting their coats back on to head out in search of hummus, but Loki’s face softened into a painfully tender expression, wrapping his arms around Thor’s neck and kissing him gently, pouring love into the gesture.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked as he drew back, smiling softly as he looked into Thor’s eyes.

“I’ll eat almost anything,” Thor said, wrapping his arms around Loki to hold him close.

“But what do you want?” Loki asked again, persistently. “What do you like? I want you to choose too.”

Thor shifted his hands downwards to paw possessively at Loki’s ass. “Meat,” he growled with a smile, kissing Loki.

Loki laughed, resting his head against his chest. “Then we have meat,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll help cook.”

Loki knew that really he should move, that even with the cake it had been a long time since lunch, time having flown by as he listened to endless repetitions of the same musical phrases and rhyming couplets. He was loathe to, however. Thor’s arms were the most comfortable place imaginable. Thor too seemed reluctant to move either towards the kitchen to start considering cooking or just to another part of the flat rather than standing in amongst their shoes and coats by the front door.

Thor sighed softly into his hair, sounded perfectly content. He nuzzled slightly, before moving his hands to Loki’s hair clip, unfastening it to allow dark hair to cascade down so his fingers could move to play with it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Loki saw Thor shove his hair clip into the pocket of the coat hung up nearest to them. That was one of the problems with wearing his hair up in a simple clip. Thor would eventually cave to the temptation to undo it, and when he did he always simply deposited the clip on whatever surface was nearest to him to deal with later. It meant they would both occasionally find Loki’s hair clips in coat pockets and attached to bananas in the fruit bowl.

Loki didn’t really mind. Thor was always careful with them, even if he wasn’t careful with their placement, and he did tend to try to make the effort to tidy them away when he noticed them lying about. He liked the feeling of Thor playing with his hair, just as he liked the slight quickening of Thor’s breath as he did so. With resolution he pulled away, heading to the kitchen with a skip in his step, knowing that Thor was following.

Loki’s version of helping mostly involved hindering Thor and they both knew it. Sometimes Loki was in the mood to cook himself, sometimes he was in the mood to let Thor cook. Sometimes he would help. Sometimes his help would mostly involve snaking his arms about Thor as he attempted to slice vegetables, slipping his hand up under his T-shirt to ensure that his nipples were adequately acquainted with Loki’s fingers.

Once Thor had shoved their dinner in the oven, he turned and caught Loki round the waist with his hands, pulling him into a kiss. 

Loki squealed with laughter, not in the least bit surprised. He wrapped his arms around Thor, drawing him into a swaying dance. He knew he should probably have put music on, but his tastes in music weren’t traditionally associated with dance. Besides, the sound of Thor’s gentle gasps against his skin was the perfect soundtrack to their movements. 

“You always did like this dress,” he sighed, torn between a strange sense of pride and a vague uncertainty that almost never reared its head anymore.

“I do,” Thor murmured, “It suits you. I have many fond memories of that dress.” He drew back slightly, pulling away from Loki with reluctance but needed to do so in order to be able to see the entirety of him, take in the sight before his eyes in addition to feeling him in his arms. “I like what’s inside it more, though,” he added, punctuating his opinion with a kiss.

Loki melted slightly, the uncertainty destabilising and falling to pieces. He hugged Thor closer to him, kissing him deeper. 

“I don’t quite understand it,” Thor admitted, not that he necessarily needed to as Loki already knew that, “But I don’t need to. It’s a part of you and I love all of you. Every bit, every way you want to express yourself. All clothes look good on you, even if I always just end up wanting you out of them. It’s not my style but sometimes it’s yours and that’s fine by me.”

Loki sniggered. “Apart from that time you got dressed up in a summer dress.” 

It hadn’t just been Thor. It had been a silly afternoon at Volstagg’s. A small party with Volstagg’s large brood running around their garden in a manner that seemed to multiply the number of children, the adults drinking as they chattered away the daylight hours. Thor and Volstagg had both ended up in Hildegund’s summer dresses. Hogun and Fandral were both closer enough in size to Loki that they could borrow a couple of his.

Thor gave Loki a strange look. “Yes,” he said, “But I was constantly worried I’d split a seam whenever I moved my arms too much. And I thought you said that it wasn’t quite my colour?”

“It wasn’t,” Loki agreed.

There was a pause, silence falling, then Thor said softly, “You really are remembering everything again, aren’t you?”

Loki nodded. “It’s like waking from a dream,” he said, “Everything slowly coming back as I remember it. It feels all nostalgic, like I’m seeing everything again for the first time and appreciating how precious it all it. Like flicking through a photo album and reminiscing, but I don’t quite know what photo is going to be next when I turn the page.”

Thor kissed his forehead tenderly, as though he was delicate and precious. With a certain amount of reluctance he drew back, returning his focus to the food in the oven. Once it was dished out, the two of them sat down to eat, Loki casually running a foot up Thor’s calf under the table.

“Thank you for cooking,” Loki said softly. He almost considered apologising for his arbitrary interpretation of the concept of helping, but knew it was ultimately pointless. It made Thor laugh, even if it was sometimes in despair, and he wouldn’t change.

“Thank you for helping,” Thor said graciously. He smiled over the table at Loki, his expression both making it clear that Loki’s help had delayed dinner but also that he’d enjoyed it far too much to be even remotely annoyed. “And thank you for not attempting to shove vegetables down my pants or setting the kitchen on fire.”

“I didn’t set the kitchen on fire, just a ratty old tea towel,” Loki protested, ignoring the other accusation. He could see the relief in Thor’s eyes as he responded, the memories returning, just as he could guess that that was a part of Thor’s reason for dangling the old memories into the conversation. “You just won’t let me live it down,” he muttered with a smile. It had been a long time ago, when he had been mucking about in the kitchen while they were cooking. He’d knocked over a dangerously positioned tea towel onto the lit hob, which had predictably caught fire. Thor had been more alarmed than him. Loki had mostly just shrugged, put it out and laughed as though it was nothing but a fantastic joke.

In comparison, the fact that he would on occasion helpfully get vegetables out for Thor to slice only to slip them either into Thor’s pockets or down the waistband of his trousers was what he considered to be an important part of cooking. He only did it with hard vegetables which would fit, and a major part of the appeal was that it always made Thor laugh. 

Loki could feel Thor’s eyes on him as they washed and dried up together after they’d finished eating. A part of him was unsure if he really could remember clearly where all the crockery was supposed to go because he could remember everything the way he was supposed to, his memories still feeling somewhat uneven with the lingering shadow of Asgard falling over them, or if it was just that he was a quick learner, picking it up over the past few days so it felt natural. 

He pushed the thoughts away. As Thor dried his hands, Loki flicked the tea towel over his head, catching him with it and using it to pull Thor towards him, as though he needed anything to capture Thor.

Thor laughed, rich and deep, holding Loki close. He ran his hands down his body, smoothing down the dress, letting Loki lean against him. For a moment they stayed still, then Thor shifted to readjust his hold on Loki, his right hand wrapped around his waist and his left drawing Loki’s hand out into a dance hold.

Loki relaxed into the embrace, letting his weight transfer first to the balls of his feet, then following Thor as he shifted from foot to foot to synchronise their movements. It was not a dance of Asgard, though he had danced his fill there too. It was a dance of Earth, even if it was not a dance of Denmark originally but Argentina, a country that seemed as far away as Asgard. Further, perhaps. 

Thor led, stepping forward, with Loki stepping back gracefully as he followed. It felt natural, like slipping through a dream into a comforting reality, dancing without any music. Thor swept his foot, inviting Loki to decorate the movement, which he did with relish. 

As they moved past the kitchen table, Loki dropped the now redundant tea towel on the back of a chair to be dealt with later. Thor continued to dance him out of the kitchen, into the living room, careful to avoid the furniture. He confidently led Loki to wrap his leg around his own, before ending their brief dance by sinking down as he stepped backwards to draw Loki’s leg up around his hip, holding it there as they held the lunge. 

Loki looked up at him as Thor took advantage of their position to run a hand along Loki’s leg before shifting so they could stand upright.

“Thor,” Loki said quietly, “Can I ask a favour?”

“Yes?”

“Would you play for me?” Loki gestured towards the cello, silent and looming in the corner of the room.

“I played plenty for you this afternoon,” Thor pointed out, already moving to ready the cello, “But of course if that’s what you want. It’s been a while so I might be a little rusty though.”

He stood quietly, bow in hand, as though running through his options while Loki took a seat on the sofa, eyes fixed on Thor. Slowly, letting himself simply fall into the old memories of old tunes he knew without even knowing them, Thor started playing.

The tune seemed familiar, though Loki couldn’t name it. An old song that he felt like he’d heard Thor practice from the room next door when they’d been teenagers and he’d resented the new family Frigga had thrust upon him. Sometimes he’d drowned it out with his own music, sometimes he’d let it reverberate through the walls as the soundtrack to which he wrote his stories and poems.

Loki kept his eyes on Thor, watching his body sway slightly with the music, holding the large cello confidently as though it was a part of him. Like mjölnir, an extension of his body. Something he held a nostalgic affection for. The final notes rung out and Thor sighed with a degree of satisfaction, a smile on his face.

He paused, thoughtfully, then started another tune. It was less smooth, and wasn’t fully formed, but Loki recognised it as the melody that Thor had been working on the day before and that had begun to come together into a full song with the rest of Yggdrasil. Now he was hearing Thor figure out the cello parts, stringing it together with the sort of familiarity of a long relationship just like how Thor knew exactly what parts of him to stroke to wring out the greatest pleasure.

“Or something,” Thor muttered with a shrug, returning the cello to its stand. He put away the bow just as carefully before taking a seat next to Loki.

Loki melted into his arms, kissing him affectionately. For a while, they stayed wrapped together in silence that seemed quieter now that the echoing resonance of the cello had stilled. Thor stroked his fingers through Loki’s hair, enjoying the sensation as much as he enjoyed the feel of Loki’s body pressed against his side. He nuzzled Loki’s neck, kissing it and enjoying the soft gasps of pleasure that fell from Loki’s lips. He sighed happily.

“I like your beard,” Loki said, drawing back enough that he could look Thor in the face. The memory that told him Thor had first grown a beard centuries ago because it was the normal fashion on Asgard seemed faint in comparison to remembering Thor asking his opinion on whether he should grow a beard not long after they had moved in together because he was keen to do so but also very much aware of the fact that Loki was the one who would be kissing him and he very much wanted Loki to continue kissing him as much as was physically possible.

“I know,” Thor said, scratching his chin and smiling. He kissed Loki softly, savouring the sensation.

“I like the rest of you too,” Loki added thoughtfully, flashing a teasing grin. 

Thor laughed, the vibrations running through his body and into Loki, shaking his head slightly. He gave Loki a look that was evenly split between being resigned and being entertained. “I am relieved to hear it,” he said, resting his head against the back of the sofa. “Would be a hell of a blow to hear it was the only thing you liked after all this time…”

Loki laughed, safe in the knowledge that Thor could always read between the lines and see the truth behind his playful teasing. He knew he’d been pricklier when he was younger, guarded and difficult, but Thor had softened those edges, easing his insecurities, and Loki had grown beyond that. He snuggled affectionately into Thor’s side, leaning his head on his shoulder and sighing contentedly as Thor wrapped his arm about him. A part of him still felt like it was out of character to show such open affection, but that part of him hadn’t been in a relationship with Thor for most of his adult life.

Thor’s phone buzzed, and he withdrew it from his pocket to reply to the message, never once breaking his hold on Loki.

Loki thoughtfully considered the lock screen, not needing more than a glance to be able to picture it perfectly in his mind. A part of him thought that it was quite even, in its way, that Thor had been the one to confess and he had been the one to actually propose, though at the same time he knew that it was a lot more blurred than that. “Were you going to propose?” he asked quietly, not entirely certain if he wanted to hear the answer, just suspecting that he had guessed right. He hadn’t meant to be so cruelly dismissive of marriage when Thor had casually brought it up in conversation, though more than that he hadn’t meant to hurt Thor but he’d done so anyway, even if it had been accidental.

Thor tensed slightly, then sighed, kissing Loki’s forehead. “I was thinking about it,” he admitted, “It was a thing to agonise about. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I wanted to marry you but I wanted to ask in a way that you’d like. I thought of all kinds of ridiculous ideas, like at a concert or maybe an entire concept album centred around the idea, but I thought you might not be so keen. A pilgrimage round all the onsen in Hokkaido. A private holiday, just the two of us, somewhere with a beautiful beach. Maybe a museum, retracing our steps from an old date.” Thor sighed, running a hand through his hair with a shrug, “And then there was the issue as to whether I should get you a ring. I mean, you’re hard to buy for generally, but an engagement ring? And I wouldn’t want you to feel obliged to wear one and didn’t even know if you’d want one or not. All I knew for certain was that you definitely wouldn’t want something like a simple diamond or anything stereotypical. So really, I had to at least test the waters before even beginning to make plans as all my thinking over all those months had led to no conclusions.”

Loki swallowed, the silence stretching out as he felt a certain amount of guilt sink through him. It had always been there, to an extent, but now it was unpleasantly stirred up. “Thor,” he said softly, “I’m so sorry.”

“You know,” Thor continued, hugging him tightly, “The one thing I hadn’t quite considered until you asked me was how much I wanted to be asked.”

“It wasn’t very romantic,” Loki said apologetically. He could still remember the slightly tearful look to Thor’s eyes, sitting in bed reading through the notebook of poetry, just as he could remember the startled expression when Loki had straddled him, tossing the notebook aside with casual disdain that rather horrified Thor.

“No,” Thor said happily, “But it was honest. And so very you.”

Loki sighed, nuzzling slightly against Thor’s neck, relaxing somewhat. It was comfortable. Somewhere he belonged. 

Thor stroked his hands through his hair, moving in for a soft kiss that grew fiercer, letting a hand drop to caress his thigh. Loki smiled, feeling Thor’s touch creep under his hem, stroking at lace and bare flesh. He liked being desired, just as he liked teasing. In that respect, Thor was his perfect match.

“Loki,” Thor whispered, almost as though it was a without conscious thought, kissing his neck.

Loki withdrew slightly, a wicked glint in his eyes that he knew Thor recognised. He was mischievous and chaotic, it made perfect sense that in another existence he might have been the god of those concepts. “Why don’t we watch a film?” he asked sweetly.

Thor pinged the suspender strap beneath his fingers, pouting slightly. “If you want to,” he said patiently, the expression on his face suggesting that he was utterly confident that he was walking right into a trap but was walking in willingly regardless.

Loki cheerfully hopped up, practically bouncing to the TV to fiddle with the DVD player. “ _Some Like It Hot_?” he asked, not waiting for an answer.

“If you want,” Thor repeated, lounging comfortably on the sofa, his eyes more interested in watching Loki than the screen.

Loki sashayed back to the sofa to where Thor had his arm invitingly resting on the back, a hug waiting to happen. He sat down on Thor, wriggling slightly to find a comfortable position, eliciting delicious sounds from Thor.

Thor wrapped his arms round Loki, drawing him back to rest entirely against his body, sighing in a mixture of frustration and contentment. They’d both seen the film plenty of times before, so it didn’t matter if his vision was impeded by Loki. His attention was always going to be on Loki more than the screen, especially when Loki was going out of his way to ensure that he was the centre of attention. He kissed Loki’s neck, so invitingly available in front of his lips, running a hand up to slip under the hem of Loki’s skirts.

Loki enjoyed the film even as he didn’t devote all of his focus to it. He was distracted by the way Thor would softly moan every time he moved, his breathing shaky and uneven against Loki’s neck, as much as he was distracted by Thor’s hands stroking as much of him as they could reach. He didn’t bother maintaining the charade until the end. He knew what happened. He could watch it again some other time. More than watching Daphne seduce Osgood or Joe seduce Sugar he wanted to seduce Thor. He also knew it was a lot easier for him than the characters as Thor offered no resistance.

He turned, straddling Thor in a position that rumpled his skirt, kissing him deeply. One of Thor’s hands gripped at his hip under his dress, the other went to the back of his neck to pull him closer. He bit gently at Thor’s lip, more interested in Thor’s soft moan than Sugar’s singing.

He slipped his hands down underneath Thor’s T-shirt, Thor reluctantly removing his hands from Loki’s body to allow him to draw it over his head and deposit it beside them on the sofa. He bent his head down to nibble at Thor’s revealed nipples, smiling at the way Thor’s breath hitched as he did so.

“Loki, please,” Thor gasped, his fingers tangling in Loki’s hair so that he could feel the softness but careful to not pull.

Loki kissed him again, fiercely, bracing himself against Thor’s shoulders for balance, enjoying the way that he loomed over him by being on top of him. Thor’s hands worked their way back to his ass, stroking and squeezing at the skin through the delicate lace hidden from view. Loki felt desired and beautiful, as he always did with Thor. Thor gazed up at him breathlessly enchanted, love and lust combining in his expression. As though Loki was more wondrous than all the hidden treasure’s of Odin’s vault combined. 

They continued kissing, even as Loki could feel Thor rocking his hips up almost without conscious thought, desperate for more contact, his breath hitching and giving way to trembling moans every time Loki brushed against his hard cock. Loki was himself feeling a certain amount of hatred for Thor’s jeans for obstructing his access even as he enjoyed the sweetness of the suffering. He’d never stop delighting in knowing how Thor looked at him, in knowing that he could saunter into the kitchen in the morning all dolled up and have Thor on the edge of arousal all day. That he could lounge about in pyjamas writing all day with unwashed hair only to look up to Thor’s enraptured eyes as though he was a film star airbrushed to perfection.

Thor used his hands to carefully support Loki’s back as though he was precious as he shifted, scooping Loki up to deposit him on the sofa. He crawled over him, his head going under Loki’s skirt to kiss and lick his cock and balls through the lace of his underwear, one of Loki’s legs thrown haphazardly over his shoulder. He did so tenderly, nuzzling softly, allowing his beard to scratch as a natural accompaniment.

Loki squealed in delighted pleasure, making Thor chuckle against his skin. “Thor,” he whined softly, prodding Thor gently in the stomach with a conveniently positioned toe. 

Thor slipped out from under the temporary tent of the skirt, gazing up at Loki. “Loki,” he said, voice low and husky, crawling up to lean over him so their breath could intermingle, “I’m at my limit. Please. I’m close to taking matters into my own hands. I can’t handle much more of your teasing.”

“Driven you to desperation so you just have to take me on the sofa before the film’s even over,” Loki said, his eyes almost entirely closed as he lay there, hair disheveled and cheeks flushed, a teasing smirk on his lips. “Hold me down and tear my clothes off?”

Thor flinched back as though burnt. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, hurt.

Loki scrambled up, undignified in his haste, reaching for him. He wrapped his arms around Thor, clinging. “I know,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean it like that that.” He paused, wrestling with himself briefly before managing to say, “Sorry.” He kissed Thor softly, Osgood reminding them that nobody was perfect in the background. 

Thor drew him back into his arms and onto his lap, kissing him deeply. “I know,” he murmured, “Just you’ve been… Not quite you. With memories of me being…” He struggled, unsure how to express it even as he knew by the way that Loki rested his head against his cheek that he didn’t need to find the right words. The vague sense that there had been a world of hurt lying between the Loki and Thor that Loki had remembered in place of their life together. Even if there had been love lingering there as well it had seemed to be a love that had festered. A hidden wound that had been allowed to go bad. 

Loki sighed, stroking through his hair. “Let’s go to bed,” he said, soft and sensible, kissing Thor tenderly. 

Thor held him close, sighing at the close contact. “I don’t want to move,” he said, “I don’t want to let you go.” It didn’t matter that he knew that Loki was strong because sometimes it felt like he was fragile, like he could slip through his fingers at any moment. 

Loki kissed him, tongue teasing and dextrous. Thor moaned softly, pressing their bodies together, the flames of desire flickering back into full force. With a reluctance sigh, Thor loosened his grasp so that Loki could stand. 

With another reluctant sigh Thor too stood, switching the TV off with a casual flick of the remote control. Loki took advantage of his standing to wrap his arms around Thor from behind, stroking his hands down his chest to unbutton his jeans. Thor laughed, though it quickly turned to a low groan as Loki’s hands slipped beneath them to cup at his cock.

His jeans, like his T-shirt, were left abandoned in the living room as Loki seemed to have little interest in them. Thor’s arms were full of Loki, scooped up as though he was precious, so he had no hands available for tidying them away. Loki snuggled his face into the crook of his neck, kissing the hard muscle there.

Thor paused in front of their bed, considering his options. He could simply place Loki down, either on the bed or the floor. He looked at Loki, who blinked up at him with beautiful green eyes that had probably never been even passingly familiar with the concept of innocence.

Thor threw him onto the bed, letting him sail the short distance through the air to the duvet beneath him. Loki squawked in startled alarm, laughing in delight as he landed, rolling over to look up at Thor with a big smile. His hair was a mess, the dress riding up and twisted. To Thor he looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Thor lay beside him, unsure if he felt underdressed in just his boxers when Loki was still fully clothed. He kissed him, hands slipping up Loki’s body under his dress. 

Loki wriggled, as if knowing exactly how to move to touch every part of Thor, drawing himself up so he was straddling Thor again. Thor sat up, Loki in his lap, carefully pulling the dress over Loki’s head. He muffled a moan against Loki’s neck, hands exploring familiar flesh. “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered. His hands went down to Loki’s hips, stroking at the fully revealed underwear.

“Almost tempted to keep the stockings and suspenders on while I fuck you, seeing as you like them so much,” Loki murmured, nibbling at Thor’s earlobe. 

Thor’s breath hitched, hands clenching on Loki’s ass reflexively. “Almost tempted to let you,” Thor admitted, unfastening the clasps holding Loki’s stockings up. He did his best to roll them off carefully so that they didn’t ladder. It was just one of the things that he’d learnt, an additional detail to his general attitude of treating everything belonging to Loki with the utmost respect. 

It didn’t take more than a few more long kisses interspersed with reverent stroking for them both to be naked. Thor returned his attention to Loki’s neck, enjoying the way that it made Loki moan softly, rolling to lie tangled up together.

Loki wasted little time tracing a light finger past Thor’s balls to play with Thor’s ass. It didn’t matter how many times he’d slipped a lubed finger in, Thor always made the sweetest sounds begging for more as if there was any chance Loki might change his mind. Not even Loki, with all his erratic chaos, was that cruel. He didn’t have that kind of self restraint, even in the name of teasing. He had his limits too.

That and the fact that he loved Thor.

He loved the way Thor would gaze at him as he moved his fingers, demonstrating his dexterity, as though he was a revelation. A divine being. He loved the words of love that seemed to spill from Thor’s lips as slowly he sunk into him until their hips met and they couldn’t possibly get any closer, at least physically. He loved the way that Thor would gasp and moan, his breath hitching and shuddering at every slight movement. He loved the way it felt to bury himself balls deep in Thor, only made better by knowing how much Thor loved it too, his cock leaking pre-cum between them. 

Thor rolled his hips to meet with Loki’s, moving in sync slowly but surely, wringing out the most from their contact. His arms were wrapped loosely around Loki, Loki’s head virtually resting on a thick bicep. They moved together, knowing each other well enough that they could coordinate perfectly, Thor moaning loudly whenever Loki wasn’t keeping his mouth occupied with kisses.

It didn’t last long, the whole day having gone into the build up leaving them trembling in each other’s arms, reduced to the softest of kisses. Thor brushed Loki’s hair back from his face even though it didn’t really need it, just wanting to run his fingers lovingly through his hair, drowning in green eyes. 

Loki smiled, comfortable and at peace. “Tomorrow,” he said softly, “I’ll make an appointment to see a doctor but you know what? I know there’s nothing actually wrong. I’ll check because it’s sensible and you’ll worry but there’s nothing to worry about. I’m perfectly healthy.”

Thor nodded, his eyes gentle. He smiled, kissing Loki softly. With a reluctant sigh, he sat up, offering a hand to Loki to pull him up and conveniently into his arms for another kiss.

They readied themselves for bed as they did every night, curling up together under the covers clean and in pyjamas. The curtains closed and the lights off, just the two of them. They could be alone in the world, safe and sound in each other’s arms. 

Thor snuggled his nose sleepily into the crook of Loki’s neck, swiftly dropping off, his breathing switching to gentle snores by Loki’s ear. A regular rhythm that was as constant as the love that poured from him. It made Loki’s heart ache a bit, as though there was too much love inside of him that he might burst, just as he felt a tender desire to keep Thor safe from anything that might wish to hurt him. Even if it was Thor who seemed to be the big, strong one, Thor was also the sweet one, all soft inside who trustingly would fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

Loki lay awake for a while, soothed by Thor’s presence, letting his thoughts wander down memory lane, through the streets of Copenhagen and the roads of Hokkaido, across the rainbow bridge of the Bifrost to the golden spires of Asgard. Along the faint branches of Yggdrasil and the concept of many world trees all interwoven with each other, a forest rather than a single trees standing alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this now rather than at the weekend as I’m about to bugger off to China for a bit.

When he drifted awake it was gently, not feeling any great need to open his eyes properly until Thor set down a steaming mug of tea on the bedside table. Then he let himself watch as Thor retuned under the covers to sip his coffee, his own eyes on Loki. Loki lay there, still and thoughtful for a while, before sitting up too to drink his tea. The room was quiet, but comfortably so. A soft stillness broken by sips and slurps.

Thor waited until he had set his empty mug down before pulling him into a warm hug. Loki melted easily into the embrace, feeling no desire whatsoever to ever leave their bed. He buried his face in Thor’s chest, inhaling deeply and feeling as though he could probably fall right back to sleep. He could feel Thor’s breath in his hair, the warmth of his skin radiating through pyjamas.

“Morning,” Thor said, the rumble of his voice resonating through Loki.

“Morning,” Loki murmured into his chest, rubbing his nose into the skin exposed by the low neckline. He pressed a lazy kiss to the collarbone conveniently near his lips and then moved away just enough that he could look into Thor’s eyes, blinking sleepily.

Thor ran a gentle hand through his hair and down his jaw to tilt his chin to the perfect angle for a kiss. He tasted of coffee, just like he did every morning. Loki couldn’t imagine a life where the day didn’t start with a cup of tea and coffee kisses, tender and loving. Loki kissed him back, toying with his tongue, slow and laconic.

Thor nuzzled at his neck, breath and beard tickling it in the nicest of ways. His hands ran up and down Loki’s back, stroking firmly and pressing them together before relaxing, letting them lie loosely in each other’s presence.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow to look properly at Loki, the other arm slung over him enough that they were still in constant contact.

“I’m fine,” Loki said slowly, “I remember everything the way I’m supposed to. I can still remember the other memories, vaguely. Like they happened to someone else, another me, who just briefly visited, borrowed my body and left leaving only the ghostly traces of memories behind.”

Thor frowned at him, as though torn between relief and concern. At the same time, Loki could see that he believed him, believed that he was back to being the Loki that he’d met at their parents wedding. The Loki who’d looked him up and down and flatly said, “No,” when it had been suggested that Thor was to be his stepbrother. He kissed Loki softly, savouring his lips.

“Do you believe in the multiverse?” Loki asked curiously. A loaded question.

“I don’t know,” Thor answered, aware that it was beyond his job description and academic study. 

“I know it might sound crazy but it really does feel like…” Loki trailed off briefly, before ploughing on, safe in the knowledge that Thor wouldn’t laugh or mock him no matter how it sounded, “I think that there was another me who was the god of mischief and who died, but no matter what I am clever Thor, so very clever, so rather than die that version of me just slipped out of that universe and into ours, into me, because here there are hints, even if we don’t know it, for how he could return to his Thor. I still remember the vague idea, the theories of magic, living on Asgard… But it wasn’t me it happened to, but another Loki who lived that life and has found his way back to it.”

“That does sound crazy,” Thor acknowledged calmly, without judgement, kissing Loki’s nose for no better reason than it being there.

Loki wrinkled his nose, which made Thor kiss it again with a soft smile.

“Maybe there are other versions of us in other universes,” Thor said noncommittally, “Though I’d always assumed they would be like us not divine, but I don’t really understand that kind of theoretical physics or whatever. But I hope that if there is a Loki wandering about that he finds his way back to his Thor. Do you think they will find each other?” He paused, thinking about a life without Loki, and wrapped him up in an all-enveloping hug.

“I don’t know…” Loki admitted, the mess of memories faint but still present. He could remember the hidden love, hidden even from himself. He could remember the affection Thor showed him, the deep anguish when he believed him gone forever. “I don’t know,” he repeated, tears prickling at the backs of his eyes, “But I can write it.”

Thor kissed him softly, stroking his hands through his hair. He nodded, smiling. “I’m glad you seem to be back to your normal self.” He kissed Loki again, slow and gentle. Familiar gestures, a familiar body and a familiar mind behind it all. 

“You can go to the studio today,” Loki said, running a finger along Thor’s jaw, through his beard. “I’m fine. I think I’ll just write. Give the other versions of us a happy ending.”

Thor looked at him thoughtfully, reluctant but also trusting Loki to know himself better than anyone else in the world ever could do. There were no men like Loki. He was still thoughtful as he ate breakfast, Loki sitting across him wearing one of his T-shirts that looked ridiculously big and yet utterly adorable. Loki had a look on his face that Thor recognised, an expression that he’d seen so many times over the years that it was like an old friend. An expression that was distracted from the world around him as he let his mind drift about in the world inside his head, drawing inspiration from the characters that lived within him, listening to their stories to compose them into words for others to read.

As Thor readied himself for the outside world, Loki took up position on the sofa, cross-legged with Thor’s T-shirt slipping down his shoulder exposing his collar bone, his laptop on his lap. Thor watched him from the doorway, suddenly completely at peace. He knew that look, that expression, that posture. “Text me if you need anything,” he said firmly, gripping at Loki’s shoulders in the effort of making his words penetrate the cloud of inspiration. Loki waved a hand vaguely, a gesture that Thor knew all too well.

“Mmmm,” Loki responded, turning to kiss him without ever really taking his eyes from the screen. Thor kissed him again on the top of the head, ruffling his hair slightly and smiling. He knew he might as well go to the studio, even if he knew he wouldn’t stay long. Loki was lost in his story and fussing would do neither of them any good. He trusted Loki just as he trusted himself to know Loki.

Still, as he joined in with discussions about potential melodies after soothing the rest of Yggdrasil with reassurances that Loki was fine, that the bad moment was over, he still kept glancing at his phone, waiting nervously for any sign that might serve as a summons home. When it did vibrate, however, Thor found himself looking a the messages and laughing quietly to himself. Loki had written him the end of the story and was sending it to him, even if messenger wasn’t the ideal format by any means. 

_The branches of Yggdrasil revealed themselves to him, opening and allowing him passage. He was Loki, there was nothing he couldn’t do. Magic unfurled about him, drawing him through the realms of impossibility back to life and Thor. He opened his eyes, renewed and reborn, his body younger than it had been but still his. Still immortal and divine, a jötunn wearing æsir skin._

_Before him was the most precious sight in all the galaxy, worth crossing the boundaries of what was possible for. Thor, sat amongst the beautiful fjords, as though he were waiting for Loki’s arrival even though there was no way he could have know._

_His hair was short, and he wore an eye-patch. Consequences of dangerous adventures, symbols of strength. He had survived when lesser warriors might have perished. He looked across the waters, away from where Loki stood. Loki couldn’t care less about the scenery. He had seen beautiful sights and none of them could ever possibly compare to Thor. He had died for Thor, willingly. He had come back, afraid and guilty, but buoyed on by an irresistible urge to be with Thor no matter the consequences._

_Thor looked up, his presence noticed. Thor was a great hunter as well as a great warrior. He was alert and aware, capable of hearing anyone approaching, even if they did so through the swirling magic that defied even the simplest interpretation of the routes of Yggdrasil’s branches._

_The two of them stared at each other. They were gods. Their lifespan was long, long enough that they could spend centuries frozen in silence, drinking in the sight of the other._

_“Loki,” Thor whispered, a question and a prayer._

_Loki nodded, his silver tongue useless, tears in his eyes making Thor indistinct when it was Thor’s vision that should have been compromised as it was Thor that lacked an eye._

_“I saw you die,” Thor said, a deep ache of betrayal and grief woven through his tone just as Frigga had always woven her magic on her loom._

_“I know,” Loki admitted, “I’m sorry.”_

_He stepped forward, afraid but unable to do anything else, sinking down beside Thor. Thor drew him into a hug, strong and solid, both of them real._

_Loki drew back first, Thor letting him go reluctantly. Loki gazed into his one remaining eye, searching desperately for the slightest hint of encouragement, the slightest glimmer of hope enough to spur on his courage. He found it, a hidden secret revealed by the repeated ripping out of Thor’s heart._

_Loki sighed with relief, even as he too felt the grief of what they had lost, because they had each other. He ran his hand through Thor’s short hair in a way he hadn’t for centuries, in a way that was not brotherly. Thor’s single eye betrayed him, a flicker of hope fanning the flames of desire. Loki leant forward, close enough that their lips were almost touching, their breath mingling. A challenge and a temptation, daring and seducing Thor._

_Time stretched, paused until Thor shifted the fraction of a millimetre needed to close the gap, capturing his lips in a kiss as his arms pulled Loki back into a fierce hug. They could deal with whatever else came next._

_I’ll cook tonight <3_ came the next message, signalling an end to the story for the time being at least. Thor still didn’t know quite if he believed Loki’s extraordinary explanation but he liked to imagine that if there were other versions of him in other universes that those version of him would have their own version of Loki. 

His phone buzzed again, to show a picture of Loki, his fingers thrown up in a casual peace sign, the kind of habit he’d picked up in Japan and never quite stopped, his tongue sticking out cheekily. The sort of selfie that he’d sent Thor millions of times before, but still it made his heart ache with love.

_I love you_ came the accompanying message.

_I love you too_ Thor replied. He paused for a moment, rereading the happy ending before adding with a smile _god of stories_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading all this.
> 
> I think it’s worth mentioning that I tend to send fics over discord, much like how Loki sends his little fanfic snippet to Thor at the end. I just assume that they tend to read my fic dumps on computers rather than phones.
> 
> I only started writing sex scenes a few months ago so am pleased with how they turned out.
> 
> If you liked this world, then I am intending to write some other stories in it. Aside from anything else, most of the past events that Thor or Loki refer to I had to provide more backstory for myself so I may as well write it up in some form or other. Likewise, a more direct continuation (MCU Thor and Loki reunion) is sort of half written. And then there’s things that interest me, like what it means for the other Avengers and characters, so maybe they’ll get some screen time too.


End file.
